On 28 and 29 October 2019, experts and stakeholders of the public sector and civil society from EU Member States and other European countries met in Germany to exchange knowledge and experiences on existing and planned national peatland strategies at a workshop co-organised by Michael Succow Foundation and the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation and the Secretariat of the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention).
According to the outcomes of the workshop (which can be downloaded below), a number of European governments and actors have developed or are in the process of developing national peatland strategies in order to:
– Provide a basis for coherent peatland management and respective policy making;
– Give recognition to peatlands: Highlight their important functions and services, their use, current threats, and new challenges in the public and political sphere (e.g. related to land use changes connected to scaled-up peatland conservation and restoration);
– Provide an overarching framework to address and bridge gaps in current approaches and to set clear guidelines for planning and implementation on sub-national level;
– Launch a debate on the cross-sectoral importance of peatlands, bring stakeholders to-gether and address conflicts of interest.
Main messages of the workshop:
- Wet peatlands offer attractive nature-based solutions for various environmental challenges, including climate change mitigation, water regulation and biodiversity conservation. Yet, they are largely threatened or degraded in many European countries.
- National peatland strategies serve as a basis to identify peatland related objectives and coherent peatland management instruments and measures across sectors. They can have a strong impact to prevent further peatland degradation, increase sustainable use and coordinate peatland restoration.
- The strategies recognize the cross-cutting effect of sustainable peatland management to reach national commitments to EU regulations and international agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, the Water Framework Directive and the Convention on Biodiversity.
- For a comprehensive strategy, all relevant peatland types and management practices (agriculture, forestry, peat extraction, recreation and tourism, climate change mitigation and nature conservation, water management etc.) should be considered.
- Strategies should be clear in their objectives and communicated transparently to the public.
- For their implementation, they need reasonable instruments and reliable funding schemes with a long-term perspective.
- To prove success and identify necessary adjustments, a monitoring and reporting scheme should accompany the strategies and their implementation measures.
To get all info on the workshop please visit https://www.bfn.de/en/activities/international-nature-conservation/projects/workshop-peatland-strategies-in-europe.html
https://succow-stiftung.de/home.html
Download the Policy Brief of the workshop ” Peatland strategies in Europe” 20.02.06_Policy_brief_peatland_strategies_bf-1.pdf
If you want to know more about peatlands in the EU Regulatory Environment, download the report of Jan Peters, Michael Succow Foundation Peatlands-in-the-EU-Regulatory-Environment.pdf