Peatlands are protecting Minnesota's ecosystem. Scientists are working to restore them

Here in Minnesota, scientists say we are sitting on a climate change superhero.

Peatlands, a type of wetland, cover more than 10% of the state — that's the most of any in the lower 48. But over time, peatlands have been misunderstood and mistreated. Now some are trying to change that.

"You might feel like we've jumped into a Dr. Suess novel," said Mark Felice, a peatland scientist with The Nature Conservancy.

At the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in East Bethel, truffle top black spruces, cotton grass puffs, colorful mosses and carnivorous plants fill in where glacial lakes retreated.

"It's just like a whole little world," said Eric Seabloom, interim director of Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve.

WCCO

Except in this world each step squishes shaking the ground around it