biologist andrey sirin goes with us. been studying peatlands for more than 30 years and is considered one of the world's leading experts. the ground here is like a waterlogged sponge. andrey: peatlands cover only 3% of the land surface in the world, but they make up the largest on earth -- and second on the planet, after oceanic deposits -- long-term storage of carbon. kerstin: but only half of russia's peat bogs are still intact. the rest were drained more than a hundred years ago, to make the land suitable for agriculture, and especially for the peat itself. it's estimated there are more than 150 billion tons of peat around moscow. and it's still extracted today for use as fuel or potting soil. drained peatlands present a permanent danger, because they're highly flammable. andrey sirin shows us footage from 2010, when there were wildfires that lasted weeks, burning down entire villages. people died. even in moscow, 100 kilometers away, people suffeud of smoke. andrey: it make people, authorities and stakeholders respon