Open letter: Brazil at a crossroads—Protecting peatlands is essential for post‐COP30 climate leadership

This Open Letter highlights peatlands as critical yet overlooked ecosystems in Brazil's climate and biodiversity policies. By translating scientific evidence into clear, actionable priorities for policymakers, it supports more accurate climate reporting, effective mitigation strategies, and improved land-use governance. The letter emphasizes the societal benefits of peatland protection, including reduced greenhouse gas emissions, water security, biodiversity conservation, and resilience to droughts and fires. It also promotes equitable engagement with Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities, strengthening inclusive, science-based decision-making and positioning Brazil as a global leader in nature-based climate solutions. COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, reaffirmed the central role of Nature-Based Solutions in addressing global climate challenges. Among these, peatlands were highlighted as critical ecosystems due to their exceptional carbon storage capacity, hydrological regulation, biodiversity, ecosystem services, cultural values, and vulnerability to degradation. The launch of the Science-based Framework for Global Peatland Targets and Guiding Principles (FAO et al., 2025; UNFCCC, 2025) offers a unified roadmap for halting peatland loss, restoring degraded areas, and enabling sustainable management practices essential to achieving global climate and biodiversity goals. Brazil contains the world's largest known extent of tropical peatlands, approximately 226,000 km2, yet they remain largely invisible within national environmental legislation and climate instruments (BRASIL, 2025). Recent assessments (Beer et al., 2024; GMC et al., 2025) show that these ecosystems are increasingly threatened by agricultural expansion, drainage, fire, and hydrological alterations. At least 3,540 km2 of peatlands have been degraded since the mid-20th century, generating over 18 Mt CO₂-eq annually (UNEP, 2022). Despite this, emissions and removals associated with peatlands are still absent from Brazil's national greenhouse gas inventory, weakening the accuracy of national reporting and undermining climate mitigation strategies. This policy blind spot is reinforced by a persistent disparity between forest and non-forest ecosystems in national carbon and biodiversity policies (Pilon et al., 2025). As a result, peatlands across the Cerrado, Pantanal, Amazon, Atlantic Forest, and montane environments remain unmapped, weakly monitored, and insufficiently protected. In the Amazon, hydrological disruptions, compounded by large hydroelectric projects and record droughts (Souza et al., 2023, 2024), are already altering peat-forming environments and affecting traditional and Indigenous communities who rely on them. These gaps hinder effective decision-making and reduce the country's capacity to fulfill international climate and biodiversity commitments. The international community has emphasized Brazil's responsibility in wetland leadership (Wetlands International, 2025). Protecting and restoring peatlands is among the most cost-effective and scientifically grounded strategies for advancing decarbonization, resilience, and biodiversity conservation. Following COP30, Brazil stands at a decisive moment to transform global commitments into national leadership that safeguards its wetlands, strengthens climate ambition, and delivers tangible benefits for people and the planet. Suelma Ribeiro Silva, Alexandre Christofaro Silva, Uidemar Morais Barral, and Carlos Moreira de Souza Jr led the initiative and wrote the letter; all the 53 authors read and agreed with all the content of the letter. The authors gratefully acknowledge institutional support from their respective organizations and thank colleagues and collaborators for their valuable discussions and insights that contributed to the development of this letter. The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.