GMC at UNFCCC COP28

#notalkwithoutpeatlands

02/12/2023 We are, where the talk is - on peatlands, of course! Here is a collection of peatland related (side)events on this year’s world climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 30th November - 12 December 2023. Participation via livestream is possible for most of them:

On Friday 8^th December at 3–4:30pm (GMT+4) Franziska Tanneberger, one of the GMC’s directors, starts participation on the ground with joining the panel of Towards a global stocktake for peatlands and other high-carbon ecosystems: status and scaling up potential. Co-organised by Succow Stiftung, Partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Wetlands International and Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU), the event is hybrid and can be followed per livestream / ). The direct link will be available from the 7^th December.

On Saturday 9^th December, in total, there are four peatland events with GMC participation: At 10:00-11:30, an official COP28 Presidency Event discusses Enhancing food and nature linkages for climate action. It is organised by the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU) with COP28 Presidency, High Level Climate Change Champions, and many other organisations including Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre. Speakers include Ani Dasgupta (President and CEO, World Resources Institute WRI), H.E. Siti Nurbaya Bakar (Minister of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia), Jochen Flasbarth (Secretary of State, Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany), Bruno Pozzi (Deputy Director Ecosystems Division Director, UNEP) and Franziska Tanneberger.
At 1:00-2:30pm (GMT+4) Climate change mitigation through peatland restoration is the topic at the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) hub. Following in livestream on YouTube is possible.
At 3:00-4:30 pm (GMT +4) a team of African and European peatland scientists reports on in a joint side event of the Global Peatland Initiative and UNEP.
Last but not least, at 4:30-6:00 pm a side event in the German Pavilion focusses on Nature-based Solutions meet Circular Economy: Cascading use of biomass (with livestream). Steffi Lemke, Minister of Environment (Germany), Cem Özdemir, Minister of Agriculture (Germany) and Franziska Tanneberger share recent insights into scaling up paludiculture for climate and biodiversity protection together on the panel.

On Sunday 10^th December at 10:00-11:30 am (GMT +4), the panel discussion on “Nature-Based solution for Ukraine. From theory to Practice: forest and water” takes place in the Ukraine Pavilion, peatlands included, of course! Franziska Tanneberger presents the current work of Succow Foundation with many partners on protection and restoration of Polisia peatlands in North-Ukraine.
At 2:00-3:30pm (GMT+4) light is shed on “Enabling the triple win for tropical peatland countries – advancing water, biodiversity and carbon measurements” in a joint side event of UNEP, UNCCD, ITPC, MEOF Indonesia at the Land & Drought Resilience Pavilion. The GMC presents maps and results from our work in tropical peatlands.

As a member of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE), Dr Franziska Tanneberger is also a member of the German delegation at the COP. In view of the global rise in emissions, the RNE sees an urgent need for new impetus from COP28. Above all, this concerns the topic of financing climate protection, which the RNE members want to contribute to at the COP.

Breakthrough in EU Nature Restoration Law

Webinar: What's next?

10/11/2023 Good news is not always bad news! After today's Friday, the EU Parliament, the EU Commission and the European Council agreed on the law to save nature - the EU Nature Restoration Law (NRL) - in the European Union. It is the largest nature conservation law in 30 years and a breakthrough. Peatlands have also now been included in the law - after they were temporarily no longer taken into account in the negotiations. But what exactly is in the law, when does it come into force and what happens next? An express webinar on the NRL - free and for everyone - explains all this online today at 6 p.m.: Jutta Paulus, MEP, negotiator for the EU renaturation law and environmental policy spokesperson for The Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, Jan-Niclas Gesenhues, environmental policy spokesman for the Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group in the German Bundestag and Franziska Tanneberger, head of the Greifswald Mire Centre, University of Greifswald, moderated by Maximilian Fries, Managing Director of Europe Calling e.V.

For Library Day

Reading and poster exhibition

10/23/2023 For Library Day 2023 on October 24th: More ruMOORen! While reading from her book "Das Moor" in the Greifswald city library, Franziska Tanneberger takes Hans Fallada camping on swinging ground in Siberia or bird watching in Senegal. It's about the landscapes between water and land on different continents and also right on our doorstep. In combination, the city library is showing the new poster exhibition "More ruMOORen - moory questions and answers with numbers from the Peatland Atlas". The reading begins at 7 p.m. and admission is free. Not to be forgotten on this day: the Peatland and Nature Conservation International Library (PeNCIL) of the Greifswald Mire Centre. The renovation of an old lecture hall is currently underway in order to be able to preserve, present and use the holdings in sufficient space. The opening is planned for 2024. We're looking forward to it.

Power to the Peatlands

Final conference statement

21/09/2023 The landmark conference from 19th to 21th September 2023 in Antwerp, Belgium, aiming to reposition peatlands at the core of European nature and climate policy, came out with a declaration for European policymakers. More than 500 peat experts present co-created this call to action "Empower nature, climate and future now!". In six main points the declaration emphasises: For peatlands we must act now and together! With 15 talks and ten poster presentations, the GMC was represented at the largest gathering of peatland experts ever held on the globe - the ‘Power to the Peatlands’. In the presentations, GMC members answered questions such as how paludiculture can be used in fens to combat eutrophication, biodiversity loss and the climate crisis. Or whether cattails filter enough water for peat moss cultures and how the peatlands of the Baltic Sea region have developed over the last four decades. The poster presentations ranged from cattail and peat moss cultivation in Germany, to analyses of peatland development via satellite data in the Baltic Sea region, to a literature study on peatlands of the Amazon region. The GMC was one of the partner organisations of the conference and supported its preparation in various committees. Via the PRINCESS project, facilitation of the conference declaration was provided.

Peatlands on MeLa 2023

Joint specialist forum of the farmers' association MV and GMC

11/09/2023 How can #peatlands be managed sustainably? Together, the Farmers' Association M-V and Greifswald Mire Centre will address the problems and perspectives at a joint specialist forum at the MeLa agricultural trade fair in Mühlengeez. On Thursday from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the entrance to Hall 2, after two short specialist lectures, there will be an opportunity for a detailed discussion about the problems and perspectives of the climate-friendly use of wet moorland.

Coming up in English

The Peatland Atlas

07/09/2023 The Mooratlas, which was published in January, has attracted great interest in Germany and - though in German - even beyond- That's why it will now also be available in English for a broad international audience. You can join the launch of the Peatland Atlas on the European political stage in Brussels on September 18th at 12:30 p.m. - on site or via livestream. René Böll, artist and co-founder Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, will speak at the opening. The Peatland Atlas is available online as early as September 11th here.
The Peatland Atlas and its launch are a joint project of Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswald Moor Centrum, BUND - Friends of the Earth Germany and the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation in cooperation with the Global Peatland Initiative.

Call for abstracts

for paludiculture session at DAFA conference by 17.09.2023

Hiring

Five jobs in joint project PaludiZentrale

Open letter on peatlands in the NRL

Proposed EU Nature Restoration Law under threat

12/06/2023 Today an open letter calling for ambition on peatlands in the EU Nature Restoration Law was published and distributed to EU institutions and member of European Parliament. The letter was coordinated by the International Mire Conservation Group, the Greifswald Mire Centre, the Michael Succow Foundation and Wetlands International Europe. Some 50 organisations in a broad coalition of conservationists, scientists and farmers caring for peatlands across the EU have signed the letter. This week, the Nature Restoration Law is negotiated in the European Parliament. The signatories urge the Members of the European Parliament and the Council to adopt the Nature Restoration Law as swiftly as possible, before 2024, and to adopt the level of ambition included in the European Commission’s proposal and not dilute peatland restoration targets.

No fun facts

New GMC info paper

How to paludiculture? 

Yes, we can … do it, new film shows

15/05/2023 Paludiculture – just a buzzword? More open questions than possibilities promised? Clearly no! Agriculture on wet and rewetted peatlands is urgently needed to combat the climate crisis. How to – that’s of real interest to farmers, landowners and politicians in peatland rich countries all over Europe. That’s why 50 people from 10 EU member states had a look at paludiculture sites in Northern Germany, guided by scientists and implementation experts of Greifswald Mire Centre and Succow Foundation. Our new film "How to paludiculture?" shows what the participants learned along the 5-day paludiculture study tour. It presents their burning questions, needs and perspectives as well as projects and experience already existing and made by paludiculture pioneers here. A lot to take home not only for them – please spread to your community, too! This film was prepared in the project EUKI - Carbon capturing by Baltic peatland farmers financed by the European Climate Initiative (EUKI) and the toMOORow project. Both are projects of Succow Foundation and partners.

Small peat moss saves CO2 big style

85 percent less carbon dioxide emissions

27/03/2023 Growing peat mosses on rewetted raised bog areas instead of draining them and using them as grassland can save up to 85 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. This was the finding of a research team from the Universities of Rostock and Greifswald, which for the first time has drawn up a greenhouse gas balance for the entire cultivation cycle of peat mosses. The scientists now present the results in the article Full-cycle greenhouse gas balance of a Sphagnum paludiculture site on former bog grassland in Germany in the international journal Science of the Total Environment. They thus provide further arguments for the MOOSstart project that has just begun. In the three-year joint project of the University of Greifswald together with partners, the cultivation of peat mosses in paludiculture is to be promoted. In the process, the production of seeds for the small plant is to be advanced on a large scale in a bioreactor.

The project with the detailed title "Yield increase and upscaling of seed production and application as an initial for the cultivation of renewable peat moss biomass in paludiculture" is carried out by the universities of Greifswald and Freiburg, as well as the Hochschule Anhalt and the practical partner Niedersächsische Rasenkulturen (NIRA). MOOSstart is further developing a process in which vegetative plant material is sterilely propagated in a photobioreactor, constructing a low-cost bioreactor for this purpose and testing it. It is also working on suitable technology for sowing the seeds produced and is developing methods to increase crop yields. The scientists would like to make a contribution to climate-neutral peatland use and substrate management.

More wet peatlands than expected

New study in Nature

8/02/2023 The global loss of wetlands is smaller than previously assumed, according to the recent study Extensive global wetland loss over the last three centuries in the internationally renowned scientific journal Nature. Peatland scientists from the University of Greifswald, partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre, have contributed data from their Global Peatland Database and from the historical holdings of the local peatland library. The results now help to better assess the climate impact of peatlands, e.g. to quantify the change in carbon storage and in methane emissions. It also allows conclusions to be drawn about the impact of wetland loss and how wetland restoration can be better planned .

The study by an authors' collective led by Standford University shows that only 21-35% of the world's wetlands have been lost since 1700, instead of 50-87% as previously thought. In a historically first reconstruction, the scientists combed through thousands of records of drainage and land-use change in 154 countries for the study to compare them with the current distribution of drained and altered wetlands to get a picture of the state since 1700.

"In terms of area, the loss is not as great as is often claimed. What seems to be good news at first glance, however, should not deceive us. Worldwide, about four million km² of wetlands have disappeared, of which about 0.5 million km² are wet peatlands. However, drained peatlands are responsible for 4-5% of global greenhouse gas emissions: they are relatively small areas but with huge consequences!" says Prof. Dr. Dr. Hans Joosten, emeritus professor and co-author of the study.

Totally new: peatland professor and professorship

Welcome to Dr Gerald Jurasinski

16/01/2023 With Dr. rer. nat. Gerald Jurasinski, the new W3 professorship for Peatland Science at the University of Greifswald has been filled since the beginning of 2023. This makes the University of Greifswald the only university with a peatland science professorship in Germany. The creation of the professorship, agreed in 2018 by the University of Greifswald and the state government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (M-V), takes the tradition and excellence of Greifswald's peatland research, as well as the high proportion of peatland in the state's land area into account.

The Greifswald Mire Centre, in which the University of Greifswald is a partner, is extremely pleased about the strengthening of research and teaching: "We have been engaging to establish this position with many allies since 2015 and are very grateful to all supporters that the professorship could finally be filled with Gerald Jurasinski," Dr. Greta Gaudig and Dr. Franziska Tanneberger from the Greifswald Mire Centre say. Dr. Gerald Jurasinski has ambitious plans for the professorship: "We need to make much faster progress in peatland rewetting. Our research will show how we can do better. In doing so, we not only want to generate knowledge, but also disseminate it and further develop Greifswald as a central hub of peatland expertise. Among other things, we want to continue building a network with many national and international partners that measures greenhouse gas emissions and other ecosystem services of peatlands in M-V and beyond. Our results will help us to act in the right way, especially with regard to climate protection."

Those interested can meet Dr Jurasinski at the public lecture “A brief history of research on greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands in northern Germany” on 17th January at 6 pm at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg or during a short walk across Greifswald's peatlands on the occasion of World Wetlands Day on 2 February. The walk starts at 2 p.m. at the Stralsunder Straße bridge at the harbour.

For more information, see the GMC press release on the peatland professorship.