Abstract
Drainage of peatlands causes severe environmental damage, including high greenhouse gas emissions. Peatland rewetting substantially lowers these emissions. After rewetting, paludiculture (i.e. agriculture and forestry on wet peatlands) is a promising land use option. In Northeast Germany (291,361 ha of peatland) a multi-stakeholder discussion process about the implementation of paludiculture took place in 2016/2017. Currently, 57% of the peatland area is used for agriculture (7% as arable land, 50% as permanent grassland), causing greenhouse gas emissions of 4.5 Mt CO2eq a−1. By rewetting and implementing paludiculture, up to 3 Mt CO2eq a−1 from peat soils could be avoided. To safeguard interests of both nature conservation and agriculture, the different types of paludiculture were grouped into ‘cropping paludiculture’ and ‘permanent grassland paludiculture’. Based on land legislation and plans, a paludiculture land classification was developed. On 52% (85,468 ha) of the agriculturally used peatlands any type of paludiculture may be implemented. On 30% (49,929 ha), both cropping and permanent grassland paludiculture types are possible depending on administrative check. On 17% (28,827 ha), nature conservation restrictions allow only permanent grassland paludiculture. We recommend using this planning approach in all regions with high greenhouse gas emissions from drained peatlands to avoid land use conflicts.
Highlights
Less than 3% of the land area is peatland, but these lands store more carbon than all forest biomass in the world (Joosten 2009; Joosten et al 2016a)
When drained for agriculture, forestry or peat extraction, this fragile system quickly changes and the carbon stored in the peat over thousands of years is lost due to oxidative degradation (Joosten and Clarke 2002; Rydin and Jeglum 2013). This results in the release of enormous amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG)
While focusing the discussion on GHG emissions, production function and compliance with nature conservation, it is important to reflect on alternative ‘climate-smart’ land use options on peatlands, and on risks and co-benefits of paludiculture not yet addressed in the planning process
Summary
Less than 3% of the land area is peatland, but these lands store more carbon than all forest biomass in the world (Joosten 2009; Joosten et al 2016a). This article describes the procedure of engaging stakeholders, creating a common knowledge base, defining land eligibility classes and developing an approach to facilitate shifting from draining peatlands towards climate change mitigation and paludiculture. According to the regional nature conservation law (NatSchAG-MV), the following designations exclude a change of the existing vegetation structure: nature reserves, national parks, legally protected biotopes, natural monuments, habitat types of the FFH directive Regarding these restrictions four paludiculture eligibility classes were developed (Table 1):. The discussion process should be continued by establishing a paludiculture working group at the state level (1) This group will formulate proposals for the abatement of constraints and for incentive instruments, in Assessment of the potential of different paludiculture types on rewetted agricultural land Wet pasture Wet meadow Black Alder Reed Reed Canary Grass Cattail Peatmoss Sundew and other grasses. Demonstration site needed to show that ready for practical use Recognized as agricultural crop
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