Wildfires are burning through thousands of hectares of forest and carbon-rich wetlands in Chile, and the Selk’nam Indigenous community, who call the area home, have been sounding the alert. Their message is urgent and meant to be heard much beyond the Timaukel region of Tierra del Fuego on the southernmost tip of South America.
The Selk’nam say there is a great deal more at stake than their native habitat. These are their ancestral lands, but the old-growth forests and peatlands are the planet’s wealth.
Peatlands are a unique ecosystem. They cover just 3% of the planet’s surface but when healthy and moist, they store more carbon than all the Earth’s forests. When peatlands like those in Tierra del Fuego burn, they not only release carbon into the atmosphere, but lose the ability to serve as a carbon sink and, therefore, to mitigate the effects of climate change.
