Greenhouse gases leaking out of degraded Estonian peat bogs pump more carbon emissions into the atmosphere than all the country’s cars and trucks combined.

That’s why environmentalists want to restore the bogs to the way they were before large-scale peat harvesting began under Soviet rule.

Unless disturbed, the CO2 found in thick layers of peat is kept in place thanks to wet conditions and antibacterial chemicals in the dead sphagnum moss that is the major constituent of peat.

When peat is harvested and the bog dries out, bacteria go to work on organic materials, releasing CO2 – 8 million metric tons of it every year in Estonia, National Geographic writes.

Now EU funds are helping Estonian scientists to restore the old bogs. The target this year is to restore more than 20,000 hectares at 89 sites, project manager Juri-Ott Salm said.

The hope is to scale up the project for more of the peatlands that cover a quarter of Estonia and export it to countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany.

The Viru bog, located in the Lahemaa National Park. Image via Diego Delso/Wikimedia Commons.

“Europe’s commercial peat industry is watching Estonia’s EU-sponsored bog restoration project with wary support,” National Geographic says. Dried peat is widely used as a fertilizer, but the industry is already being challenged by some environmental groups, who say peat harvesting contributes to global warming.

Peat is also used as fuel for power plants in Finland, where critics say the practice is taking the luster from the country’s clean, green reputation. But European peat’s contribution to greenhouse gases pales in comparison to Southeast Asia, where vast tracts of tropical peatland have been degraded, Irish peat expert Donal Clarke told New York University’s publication Scienceline.

• Estonia has moved to renewable energy sources faster than most EU countries. By 2011 renewables supplied fully a quarter of its energy needs.

• However, a major driver of Estonia’s economy is a coal-like substance, oil shale, which is found in abundance there and almost nowhere else. Oil shale can be burned to generate electricity or heated to release oil, but it is less efficient than coal.

• The oil shale industry is “buoyant” even as Estonia continues to attract more investment into renewables, according to Renewables Now.