Why peatlands matter

Peatlands cover only 3% of the world’s land surface, but contain 500 gigatonnes of carbon within their peat – twice as much as all the biomass of the World’s forests. Peatland drainage allows oxygen to enter the peat, resulting in emissions of CO₂ and often also N₂O. While covering only 0.3% of the world’s land surface, drained peatlands cause disproportionally high CO₂ emissions: they are responsible for nearly 5% of the world’s anthropogenic CO₂ emissions (2 gigatonnes CO₂ per year). Emission hotspots are Indonesia, the EU, Russia, China and the USA (Joosten 2009). In a country like Germany, drained peatlands constitute only 7% of the total agricultural land area. But they cause 99% of the CO₂ emissions from agriculturally used soils and 37% of all emissions from agriculture (including animal husbandry; UBA 2016). In a peatland-rich state like Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, drained peatlands constitute the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions with about 6.2 million t CO₂-eq. per year (MLUV MV 2009).

  

Besides their climate impact, peatlands play a significant role for biodiversity: Peatlands provide a unique habitat for a broad spectrum of natural diversity at the genetic and species level and offer distinctive diversity at the ecosystem and landscape scales. In addition, wet and rewetted peatlands provide numerous other ecosystem services to society (Bonn et al. 2016), such as retention of pollutants and regulation of the local climate and the landscape water budget

 

Conventional agricultural use of peatlands is associated with lowered groundwater tables and resulting peat subsidence. Land subsidence makes further drainage increasingly difficult. It destroys the basis for peatland utilisation by using up the soil literally and irretrievably and has already resulted in large scale loss of productive land.

 

Thus, there is an urgent need for peatland rewetting from both an environmental and a climate policy perspective (TEEB DE 2014). Peatland rewetting should more often be linked to paludiculture. This wet peatland utilisation (Joosten et al. 2012, Wichtmann et al. 2016) includes traditional forms of land use (e.g. reed harvest for thatching), but also innovative types of use for peatland biomass as solid fuel or industrial raw material.

 

References:

Bonn, A., Allott, T., Evans, M., Joosten, H. & Stoneman, R. (2016): Peatland restoration and ecosystem services: science, practice, policy. Cambridge University Press. 493 S. 

Crump, J. (Ed.) 2017. Smoke on Water – Countering Global Threats From Peatland Loss and Degradation. A UNEP Rapid Response Assessment. United Nations Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal, Nairobi and Arendal

Hirschelmann, S., Tanneberger, F., Wichmann, S., Reichelt, F., Hohlbein, M., Couwenberg, J., Busse, S., Schröder, C. & Nordt, A. (2020) Moore in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern im Kontext nationaler und internationaler Klimaschutzziele - Zustand und Entwicklungspotenzial, Faktensammlung. Greifswald Moor Centrum-Schriftenreihe 03/2020 (Selbstverlag, ISSN 2627‐910X), 35 S.

Joosten, H. (2009): The Global Peatland CO₂ Picture. Peatland status and emissions in all countries of the World. Wetlands International, Ede. 10 S.

Joosten, H., Tapio-Biström, M.-L., Tol, S. (2012): Peatlands - guidance for climate change mitigation by conservation, rehabilitation and sustainable use. Mitigation of climate change in agriculture Series 5. FAO and Wetlands International, Rome. 114 S. 

Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE (2014): Naturkapital und Klimapolitik – Synergien und Konflikte. Kurzbericht für Entscheidungsträger. Technische Universität Berlin, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ, Leipzig. 

UBA (2021): Berichterstattung unter der Klimarahmenkonvention der Vereinten Nationen und dem Kyoto-Protokoll 2021. Nationaler Inventarbericht zum Deutschen Treibhausgasinventar 1990 – 2019. 995 S. 

UNEA (2019) United Nations Environment Assembly of the United Nations Environment Programme. Resolution ‘Conservation and sustainable management of peatlands’, 15.03.2019, Nairobi.

Wichtmann W., Schröder C & Joosten H (2016): Paludikultur – Bewirtschaftung nasser Moore. Kimaschutz – Biodiversität – regionale Wertschöpfung. Schweizerbart Science Publishers, Stuttgart. 272 S.