“We’re taught that certain landscapes like forests and oceans are beautiful,” photographer and National Geographic Explorer Luján Agusti says. But these aren’t the only places that hold beauty. Agusti’s current work focuses on peatlands, a type of wetland that comprises 3% of Earth’s landscape yet stores twice as much carbon as all of the world’s forests. These landscapes were historically considered murky, mysterious, and frightening, but Agusti’s work challenges that idea, illuminating the role that peatlands play in cultures around the world and how they support the planet: absorbing carbon, regulating temperatures, and protecting biodiversity. 

Agusti hails from Tierra del Fuego, where rising temperatures and retreating glaciers reveal the effects of climate change; its Peninsula Mitre is also home to the largest peatlands in South America. For nearly ten years, Agusti has traveled to Argentina, Finland, Indonesia, and Peru photographing and reporting on these landscapes. 

“This project really got me thinking about how humanity relates to nature,” she says. “Even if we are part of it, we keep putting it apart from us instead of understanding that we are all together.” 

Agusti’s work is possible in part thanks to the Global Storytellers Fund, a joint effort by The Climate Pledge and National Geographic Society to support those documenting the climate crisis through visual storytelling. Agusti recently co-produced a multimedia project called “Black Water” with Fuegian filmmaker Nicolas Deluca and today, on World Peatlands Day, is expecting a new baby. She recently sat down with The Climate Pledge to share more about the inspiration behind her work. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

The Climate Pledge: What first drew you to peatlands as a subject—and what continues to keep you inspired?

Agusti: Here, in Tierra del Fuego, we’re surrounded by fantastic landscapes: We have the Andes Mountain range on one side and the Southern Ocean on the other, and big forests. Peatlands remained outside of what we usually care about. So, I decided to learn more about them. I learned they are very important for living on the planet, and they are still very much mistreated. At some point, I wanted to change that and provide some new information so those who live close to them could value them for what they are. 

The Climate Pledge: Can you share why peatlands are so critical to climate stability? 

Agusti: Peatlands are important climate mitigators because they’re formed over thousands of years. When the layers are formed, carbon dioxide gets inside the layers, and it gets covered by new layers, and the carbon stays preserved, forming the “carbon sink” that people talk about. When you see peatlands, you can see 20,000 years of carbon dioxide that has been retained and also can be released back into the atmosphere if the peatland is drained or the peat is extracted. 

Protecting peatlands is urgent because once the peat is extracted, the carbon dioxide is released back into the atmosphere. As a first step, it’s important that we start to identify peatlands around us. Scientists are just beginning to learn about tropical peatlands, which are different from the peatlands near the South Pole where I live, and the ones near the Nordic countries. There’s still a lot we don’t know about this mysterious ecosystem that we need to learn so we can better protect it. 

Read more: Luján Agusti on the power of peatlands

The Climate Pledge: Is there a moment or story from your time reporting that stands out to you or has really stuck with you?

Agusti: Every place has an interesting story. When we traveled to Sumatra, Indonesia, Ryan Syaputra, the leader of Menang Raya community, told us that the peatlands were part of their identity, and that losing the peatlands would make their community disappear. I remember we were on the boats getting to the big peatlands, and he said, “Now we are entering the black water.” “Black Water” later became the name of this project. He talked about the black water as a treasure. Black water is sometimes associated with being dirty or disgusting, but for this community, black water is their life—their treasure.

The Climate Pledge: You describe your work as both scientific and poetic. How do you balance those two perspectives in your storytelling? 

Agusti: I worked with scientists and came very close to the peatlands. I experimented with different ways of portraying the peatlands using a drone. I felt frustrated because I still couldn’t get to the core of it. 

Eventually, I learned that peatlands preserve materials in a very particular way because of their acidic characteristics. Archeological and ecological elements can be preserved inside of peatlands for thousands of years. In this way, they are portals to the past. That realization became a breaking point in my storytelling because there was this magical information about them. 

In Tierra del Fuego, the Selknam Indigenous communities think of peatlands as portals that can move in time. Receiving this ancestral information from the Indigenous communities gave me a way of connecting poetically with the ecosystem. The peatlands don’t only bring us information from the past—they can also help us work on our future, our livelihood on this planet. 

The Climate Pledge: Why are grants like the one from the Global Storytellers Fund so important for you as a storyteller?

Agusti: Having this opportunity has been really important for me as a Latin American woman photographer, trying to travel around the world and tell stories that matter. I don’t like to think of these stories as having been “silent,” because individuals and communities have their own voices. However, having the chance to bring these stories to other parts of the world has been amazing.

The Climate Pledge: You’re currently expecting a baby on World Peatlands Day. How has this new chapter shaped how you think about the future of the planet and your project?

Agusti: I’m a mother already, and I’m expecting a baby. That experience has shaped the way I relate to the world. Caring is one of the most important, valuable things we can do for others and for the environment. It requires slowing down. Nature moves slowly, too. Those are both things I have learned from motherhood: Caring more, taking it slower. 

When I think about this project long-term, I would love to visit more communities, learn more stories about peatlands, and bring them back home. I see this as a lifetime project, and I would like to travel to as many peatlands as I can. My aim is that we all at least know about peatlands.