Peatlands are gaining increasing global attention for their potential contribution to climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as their values to livelihoods. On the sidelines of the UNFCCC Bonn Climate Change Conference on 11 May 2017, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) together with the European Space Agency (ESA), Friedrich Schiller University Jena (FSU Jena) and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) held a side event on ‘Re-discovering the magnificent carbon storage potential of wetlands and peatlands’. Speakers presented the latest findings on tropical peatlands, including research by CIFOR that suggests there may be three times more peat in the tropics than previously reported.