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This is both a problem and an opportunity, as climate negotiators now realise. The solution to those fires (and, indeed, to all peat-related carbon-dioxide emissions) is simple and relatively cheap: stop draining wetlands and allow water to accumulate in them again. On December 11th climate negotiators at the United Nations’ meeting in Cancún, Mexico, agreed that peatland “rewetting”, as it is rather inelegantly known, could be a way for some countries to offset emissions of carbon dioxide from other sources, under the Kyoto protocol or any agreement that follows it.
Guidelines for doing so will now be developed. But for these to have any practical effect, a final agreement will be needed over how more general changes in land use will be treated within any new climate deal. The next global climate gathering, in South Africa in December 2011, will attempt to arrive at one.
As Susanna Tol of Wetlands International, an environmental lobby group, observes, only a portion of the world’s wetlands will eventually be rewetted. Exactly which bits are restored to pristine sogginess will depend on local questions, such as the availability of land, the alternative uses for drained peatland and the price of carbon-dioxide offsets.
In poor and boggy Belarus, for example, Ms Tol says it costs a mere €10 ($13) to avoid a tonne of carbon-dioxide emission in this way. Even in richer places the cost can be offset in part if the soggy ground can be put to lucrative use. That may sound unlikely, but wet peatland agriculture, known as paludiculture, can produce profitable crops such as reed, alder and moss.
Add in other reasons to protect wetlands—from their pragmatic role providing clean water and flood protection to the sentimental one of providing homes for wildlife—and the case for rewetting is strengthened. Whether it is strong enough to overcome the age-old human instinct that swamps are there to be drained remains to be seen.

A. 어휘
negotiators 협상대표. relatively 상대적으로.
stop draining wetlands 濕地(습지)의 물을 빼는 것을 중단하라.
accumulate 蓄積(축적)하다.
peatland “rewetting” 土炭(토탄)이 있는 습지에 다시 물을 채우는 것.
inelegantly 세련되지 않게, 우아하지 않게. offset 相殺(상쇄)하다.
protocol 議定書(의정서), 條約(조약) 원안. restore 復古(복고)하다.
pristine 원래의, 옛날의, 원시시대의, 청결한. sogginess 물에 잠김, 물에 젖는 것.
local questions 局地的(국지적)인 문제. availability (습지로서) 이용가능성.
boggy 늪이 많은, 沼澤地(소택지)의. lucrative 수지가 맞는, 이익이 되는.
paludiculture 소택지 재배. cf. paludal 소택지의, 늪이 많은.
reed 갈대. alder 오리나무 屬(속)의 식물. moss 이끼.
pragmatic 실용적인. age-old 오래 된, 예로부터의. instinct 본능.
swamps 濕地(습지). remains to be seen 두고 볼 일이다.