Peatlands have the capacity to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere, and reducing the rate of peatland conversion and changes in management have been identified as an important ‘Natural Climate Solution’ aimed at reducing emissions from the land sector. However, in order to properly quantify the carbon benefits of peatland conservation, realistic estimates of the emission impact of different site preparation techniques used during land-use conversion of wetlands are needed. The Alberta Oil Sands Region (OSR) is of particular interest because oil and gas development on boreal peatlands (~230kha), has resulted in the disturbance of significant amounts of carbon in peat and deep organic soils that have not been reported in land-use emissions monitoring. In this study, we compiled the land management practices used since the 1960s for oil and gas development in the OSR, and developed disturbance matrices that define the fate of carbon associated with current and past land-management practices for a range of oil and gas disturbances. The Canadian Model for Peatlands (CaMP v2.0) was then used to develop emission factors for different development practices, including an analysis of sensitivity to uncertainties in the treatment of the aboveground biomass during conversion (e.g., slash and burn, left intact, harvested or mulched). Knowledge gaps and uncertainties will be presented as a basis for future work to improve our understanding and ability to quantify the carbon impacts of peatland conservation in areas threatened by industrial development.