Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A collaborative cross-border study digging into forested tidal swamps in the Pacific Northwest has determined these ecosystems are carbon storage superheroes. 

Found upstream from coastal estuaries and shorelines, but still subject to the flux of ocean tides, the woody wetlands feature a tangle of shrubs, grasses and trees, like willows and Sitka spruce, that can trap about nine million tonnes of organic carbon per hectare — the equivalent to the amount of carbon burned by two million gas-powered cars every year.