Covered in peat, moss and heather, the vast land of blanket bog called Flow Country stretches 4,000 square kilometers across the Scottish Highlands.

It plays a significant role in cooling the climate as the world is warming up. In the thick dark bog, 400 million tons of carbon is locked away. The key to this is sphagnum moss. When it dies it doesn't fully decay. Instead it turns into layers of peat that capture twice as much carbon as forests do.

However, it has been damaged due to inappropriate forestry and agriculture. The bog was covered in plantation timber and severely degraded. Deep into the Flow Country, landholders drained the peat and tried to make the land more productive for farming for 30 years.

Drained peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. They're responsible for almost 6 percent of global CO2. 

Now conservationists are trying to save it, so trees are being cut down and the land slowly returned to healthy bog.

The depth of the peat in some places is up to 10 meters deep. Scientists hope that if people can see the beauty in these soggy bogs, they will learn to appreciate the most effective carbon sink on the planet. 

(Cover: screenshot from the video. Editor: Li Yunqi.)

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