In North Carolina, a race is on to restore critical peatland before it dries up or is destroyed

Scientists and an investment firm called Pantheon Regeneration are working to rewet a 23-square-mile peatland tract in North Carolina, where old drainage ditches have dried out thousands of years of accumulated peat and released large volumes of stored carbon dioxide. Peatlands, when saturated, hold more carbon than all the world's forests combined, but damaged peat does the opposite, releasing it back into the atmosphere.

Pantheon's plan is to restore the water table and then sell carbon credits generated by the restoration, funding a stated goal of protecting a million acres of peatland stretching from Virginia to Florida. Researchers from Duke University are taking soil samples at the site to track the project's progress.

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