Background
In many parts of the world, an increasing demand for productive land constitutes an obstacle for peatland rewetting and threatens pristine peatlands. Land use with plants and machinery adapted to wet site conditions can offer a solution for the trade-off between agricultural production and peatland protection.
Paludiculture is a paradigm shift from adapting site conditions to requirements of conventional agriculture to adapting cultivation to permanent wet conditions. This shift results in significantly lower environmental impacts. Adapted cultivation includes using spontaneously grown or cultivated biomass, adapted machinery, and adapted harvesting processes.
The use of wet peatlands allows for the re-establishment or maintenance of ecosystem services such as sequestration and carbon storage, water and nutrient retention, local climate cooling, and habitat provision for rare species. Paludiculture combines reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through peatland rewetting with avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions through substitution of fossil fuels and raw material. Biomass from different species can be used as food, feed, fiber and fuel but also as raw material for industrial biochemistry or construction. In the long run peat accumulation may even resume, leading to a net sequestration of carbon in the subsoil.
Paludiculture focuses mainly on rewetting formerly drained peatlands. While pristine peatlands provide valuable ecosystem services and ideally should be protected entirely, paludiculture might be a second best solution for sites where the increasing demand for productive land drives peatland drainage.
Paludiculture on rewetted sites has many advantages including:
- Preservation of usable land: Peat preservation requires the water level to be close to ground level year-round, keeping the soil waterlogged. In this state, peat is preserved and production on the land can continue. Alternatively, when the soil is drained there is continuous peat loss and degradation.
- Climate protection through peat conservation: Worldwide, peatlands store more carbon than forests. Drainage continuously releases this carbon in the form of greenhouse gases. The lower the water level, the more carbon is emitted. Peat-preserving water levels store carbon and can reduce emissions by 10-25 metric tons of CO2 equivalent.
- Water pollution control through nutrient retention: Conventional agriculture on peatlands results in mineralization and fertilization, which lead to nitrogen inputs into adjacent water bodies. However, wet peatlands under paludiculture can act as sinks for nitrogen which helps keep neighbouring water bodies healthy.
- Species protection through conservation and habitat creation: Peatlands have specific flora and fauna that are adapted to wet conditions. Paludiculture areas can provide replacement habitats for rare animals (e.g. lapwing, snipe) and plant species (e.g. marsh stitchwort, globeflower).
- Sustainable raw material extraction: Paludiculture allows peatlands to remain productive while peat is preserved. Paludiculture also provides for future generations, since farming the land can continue. Raw materials from paludiculture are renewable resources that conserve carbon when used as materials and emit less carbon than fossil fuels when used for energy. Thus, paludiculture also contributes to climate protection, which is also helpful for future generations. Paludiculture combines economic, ecological, and social aspects [3].
- Strengthening regional value creation: Paludiculture ensures the long-term use of peatlands as production sites. It creates income alternatives, maintains regional value creation, and reduces dependence on non-renewable resources. The utilization of biomass can be done by regional actors and by existing infrastructure (operational, technical, and social). A cooperation of regional enterprises can promote identity formation with local characteristics (e.g., harvesting reed for reed roofs in the coastal regions of Northern Germany). The value-added effects are greatest in the case of material utilization since several processing steps are usually necessary and higher market prices can be achieved [5].
- Preservation of archive function: Peat stores information about the time in which it was formed. Thus, with pollen and large residue analyses, the landscape history of the last millennia can usually be reconstructed. By preserving the peat body, the archival function of peatlands is also preserved.
Peatland sites
Rewetted raised bogs and fens differ in their site conditions (e.g., nutrient availability) even after severe alteration due to drainage. These conditions limit the selection of cultivable plant species. Reed, bulrush, cultivated grasses, and alder are suitable for lowland fen sites; Sphagnum moss is suitable for highland fen sites.
Paludiculture and nature conservation
Paludiculture is not intended to compete with traditional conservation objectives and is particularly suitable for previously agricultural, drained, and degraded areas without conservation status. In protected areas, nature conservation goals continue to take precedence over economic interests.
The opportunities and risks for nature conservation and environmental protection have been listed in detail in a position paper by the Länder-AK Moorschutz. The paper was developed by the state authorities for nature conservation of the moor-rich federal states and the BfN (Department for Nature Conservation). Some examples of the opportunities and risks include:
- Paludiculture areas represent potential replacement habitats or stepping stones in the biotope network for many species typical of peatlands.
- Paludiculture areas have the potential to provide buffer zones between protected areas in peatlands and surrounding conventional agriculture.
- Paludiculture areas can represent potential corridors between different protected areas.
- Threats of withdrawal of agricultural land status: withdrawal of agricultural land status for paludiculture land means that there is no incentive to comply with the cross -compliance requirements of EU funding, which would ensure compliance with environmental and conservation standards.
- Dangers of decline in permanent grassland: The introduction of paludiculture poses the risk of reducing extensively used or species-rich grassland, which are important for biodiversity. Paludiculture must therefore be implemented with consideration for the particular site. Extensive wet meadows with high value for nature conservation must be protected and should not be converted to paludiculture.
The authorities involved support the further development and implementation of paludiculture as a land use method. They recognize that paludiculture offers significant opportunities but is still in the early stages and therefore cannot yet be conclusively evaluated from a nature conservation perspective.
Rewetted raised bogs and fens differ in their site conditions (e.g., nutrient availability) even after severe alteration due to drainage. These conditions limit the selection of cultivable plant species. Reed, bulrush, cultivated grasses, and alder are suitable for lowland fen sites; Sphagnum moss is suitable for highland fen sites.
Paludiculture is not intended to compete with traditional conservation objectives and is particularly suitable for previously agricultural, drained, and degraded areas without conservation status. In protected areas, nature conservation goals continue to take precedence over economic interests
The opportunities and risks for nature conservation and environmental protection have been listed in detail in a position paper by the Länder-AK Moorschutz. The paper was developed by the state authorities for nature conservation of the moor-rich federal states and the BfN (Department for Nature Conservation). Some examples of the opportunities and risks include:
- Paludiculture areas represent potential replacement habitats or stepping stones in the biotope network for many species typical of peatlands.
- Paludiculture areas have the potential to provide buffer zones between protected areas in peatlands and surrounding conventional agriculture.
- Paludiculture areas can represent potential corridors between different protected areas.
- Threats of withdrawal of agricultural land status: withdrawal of agricultural land status for paludiculture land means that there is no incentive to comply with the cross -compliance requirements of EU funding, which would ensure compliance with environmental and conservation standards.
- Dangers of decline in permanent grassland: The introduction of paludiculture poses the risk of reducing extensively used or species-rich grassland, which are important for biodiversity. Paludiculture must therefore be implemented with consideration for the particular site. Extensive wet meadows with high value for nature conservation must be protected and should not be converted to paludiculture.
The authorities involved support the further development and implementation of paludiculture as a land use method. They recognize that paludiculture offers significant opportunities but is still in the early stages and therefore cannot yet be conclusively evaluated from a nature conservation perspective.
The importance of paludiculture in bringing together peatland conservation and forest productivity is mirrored in international positions.
Sources & further information:
[1] Fachstrategie Paludikultur des Landes Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
[2] Abel, S. et al. (2016): Diskussionspapier zur guten fachlichen Praxis der landwirtschaftlichen Moorbodennutzung. Telma 46: 155-174.
[3] Behrendt, D. & Neitzke H.-P. (2016): Nachhaltige Landnutzung. In Wichtmann, W. Schröder, C. & Joosten, H (Hrsg.): Paludikultur – Bewirtschaftung nasser Moore. Klimaschutz − Biodiversität − regionale Wertschöpfung. Schweizerbart Science Publishers, Stuttgart, 272 p.
[4] Bonn, A. et al. (2015): Klimaschutz durch Wiedervernässung von kohlenstoffreichen Böden (S. 124-147). In Hartje et al. (Hrsg.): Naturkapital Deutschland - TEEB DE. Naturkapital und Klimapolitik - Synergien und Konflikte. Technische Universität Berlin, Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ. Berlin, Leipzig.
[5] Holsten, T. (2016): Regionale Wertschöpfung. In Wichtmann, W. Schröder, C. & Joosten, H (Hrsg.): Paludikultur – Bewirtschaftung nasser Moore. Klimaschutz − Biodiversität − regionale Wertschöpfung. Schweizerbart Science Publishers, Stuttgart, 272 p.
[6] Holsten, B.; Trepel, M. (2016): Nährstoffhaushalt und Gewässerschutz. In Wichtmann, W. Schröder, C. & Joosten, H (Hrsg.): Paludikultur – Bewirtschaftung nasser Moore. Klimaschutz − Biodiversität − regionale Wertschöpfung. Schweizerbart Science Publishers, Stuttgart, 272 p.
[7] Wichtmann, W. & Joosten, H. (2007): Paludiculture: peat formation and renewable resources from rewetted peatlands. IMCG Newsletter 2007/3: 24-28.
[8] Zeitz (2016): Niedermoornutzung in Nordostdeutschland. In Wichtmann, W. Schröder, C. & Joosten, H (Hrsg.): Paludikultur – Bewirtschaftung nasser Moore. Klimaschutz − Biodiversität − regionale Wertschöpfung. Schweizerbart Science Publishers, Stuttgart, 272 p.