News Peatlands for Posterity

Expert on the topic Professor Dr Klement Tockner ▸

• Earth Sciences
• Election year 2015

For centuries, these vital functions played no role in human activity. Instead, peatlands were painstakingly drained, water was removed from the landscape, and the nutrient-rich peat soils were converted into arable land — an immense feat by earlier generations that created productive agricultural areas. Of the roughly 1.9 million hectares of peat soils in Germany, 94 per cent have now been drained². Climate change, however, is forcing a rethink: drained peat soils release large quantities of CO₂ — in Germany, around seven per cent of national greenhouse gas emissions³. Yet if the country is to achieve climate neutrality by 2045, the superpowers of peatlands must be restored.

The funding programme is therefore “a step in the right direction”, as Bernd Hansjürgens, Head of the Department of Economics at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig, puts it. Together with Klement Tockner, he was spokesperson for the Leopoldina working group “Climate, Biodiversity, Raw Materials: For an integrated use of mires and floodplains”, which published a statement on the subject in 2024. In it, the participating scientists recommended developing new land-use concepts for rewetted peat soils together with farmers, and providing financial support for their implementation. “The Leopoldina statement provides an indispensable, evidence-based foundation for this funding programme,” Tockner emphasises.

Landscape ecologist Franziska Tanneberger, Director of the Greifswald Mire Centre, also views the programme positively: “For the first time, there is a structured nationwide framework, coordinated with the European Commission, for implementing peatland rewetting on a scale that is relevant in terms of climate and environmental policy.” Tanneberger contributed to the Leopoldina statement and knows from experience: “This mammoth task can only succeed together with farmers. That is why it is important that the Federal Ministry for the Environment is not focusing on setting land aside, but on sustainable use.” On peatland areas, reeds and other moisture-loving plants could be grown in “paludiculture” (from the Latin palus, meaning marsh or swamp), in order to harvest materials for fuel, insulation or packaging, for example. Peatlands could also be used as wet pastures for water buffalo and as sites for photovoltaic installations.

Expert on the topic Professor Dr Franziska Tanneberger ▸

• Greifswald Mire Centre

The funding programme is now intended to support both preparatory work and the actual rewetting measures, the transition to paludiculture, compensation payments and the safeguarding of permanent operation. “With its four modules, which can be applied for separately, it is very comprehensive in design,” Hansjürgens explains. “Whether it ultimately proves successful will depend above all on demand — in other words, on whether products from paludiculture find practical applications, for example in the paper and packaging industries or in the construction and insulation sectors.” To achieve this, the precursor products from “wet peatland cultivation” would have to be available on a permanent basis, be price-competitive and guarantee reliable quality. “If that can be ensured, they can be used in the long term,” the environmental economist explains. Industrial and commercial companies are already poised to begin, Tanneberger reports: “Well-known companies, including Otto, Strabag and Obi, have committed themselves within an ‘Alliance of Pioneers’ to using renewable, regional raw materials and to actively helping to create value from paludiculture biomass.”

Expert on the topic Professor Dr Bernd Hansjürgens ▸

• Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig

Even so, peatland landscapes have not yet been saved. “The priority now is to roll out these measures across larger areas and generate appropriate markets for the products,” says Tockner. “At the same time, we need compelling science-led support for the programme, as well as long-term monitoring in order to assess its effectiveness, make adjustments where necessary, and distinguish between the short-, medium- and long-term effects of rewetting.” Tanneberger adds that it is important to make progress in parallel on other key “levers”, especially the legal framework. Economist Hansjürgens, meanwhile, does not believe support for voluntary measures goes far enough; he would like to see more “political pressure”.

The Leopoldina statement had already stressed “that the challenges of retaining more water in the landscape and rewetting peatlands across Germany on a large scale [...] are great and far-reaching — comparable to the phase-out of coal or nuclear power. Such a far-reaching transformation can succeed only if the necessary conditions are created.” Awareness of this now appears to have reached the Federal Ministry for the Environment. “The conditions for a breakthrough are better than they have been for a long time,” says Tanneberger. “Agriculture is open to new approaches, industry is waiting for climate-friendly raw materials, and the issue has also arrived on the political agenda.” The real test now, she says, is how quickly approval and implementation processes actually take effect, and how swiftly and adaptively the funding is administered.

Only two per cent of the remaining peatland areas in Germany are still considered near-natural. That is very little. It is therefore crucial, says Tockner, to protect these few still largely intact peatland areas over the long term: “Compliance with the prohibition on deterioration must be the highest priority.” So that today’s unsung superheroes may endure as the peatlands for posterity.

(1) https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/peatlands-store-twice-much-carbon-all-worlds-forests

(2) Digital Dossier „Moore und Auen: Vom Wandel nasser Landschaften“ (German only)

(3) https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/daten/umweltzustand-trends/klima/treibhausgas-emissionen-in-deutschland/emissionen-der-landnutzung-aenderung (German only)