The Future is Wet: cultivating change through wet farming and paludiculture
Welcome to the International workshop on paludiculture! Join us at Provincie Vlaams-Brabant – Provinciehuis Leuven for a day filled with insightful discussions, interactive sessions, and networking opportunities.
Register here
Background
Despite covering only 3% of global land surface, peatlands store more carbon, more effectively and for longer periods than any other terrestrial ecosystems. Yet, when drained and degraded, they become a significant source of GHGs. Nearly 50% of Europe’s peatlands have been degraded, mainly due to agriculture, forestry, and peat extraction. Drained peatlands alone account for 25% of the EU’s agricultural GHG emissions. Currently, the greatest threats to peatlands are drainage and pollution, driven by intensive agriculture, which depletes their carbon stores, causes erosion, and releases nutrients and sediments into nearby water bodies, further harming ecosystems.
Paludiculture represents a promising solution by integrating rewetting with productive land use. This approach allows for the sustainable cultivation of wet and rewetted peatlands while preserving peat soils, minimizing CO₂ emissions, and preventing land subsidence. By combining ecological restoration with economic viability, paludiculture offers a forward-thinking strategy for regenerating degraded peatlands, reducing emissions, and promoting sustainable land management.
Aim
This workshop aims to raise awareness about paludiculture as a sustainable land-use practice, facilitate knowledge exchange among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, and showcase real-world examples of its implementation. By bringing together diverse stakeholders, the event will highlight the potential of paludiculture to restore peatlands, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create viable economic opportunities for sustainable land management. Furthermore, in the afternoon there is a field visit to a paludiculture site in Flanders, which is part of the Multi Peat project. It is located in the Vallei van de Zwarte Beek in the province of Limburg.
Keynote speakers will share their insights:
1. Jutta Paulus, Member of the European Parliament, Group of the Greens.
2. Mike Longden, Peatland Programme Technical Lead, Liverpool John Moores University.
3. Gert-Jan Van Duinen, Senior Researcher, Landscape Ecologist.
4. Jan Peters, Managing Director at Michael Succow Foundation.