News

2022

The Mouse in the bogs

About cow burps, smacking ground and pickled cucumbers

17/08/2022 The mouse was here! In the summer, the children's television program "Show with the Mouse" took a closer look at climate issues - including in the bogs. From the scientists at the Greifswald Mire Centre, the mouse learned why peatlands are drained, peat is mined and farming on these soils is bad for the climate. Especially when cows graze on it. Clarissa, Ralph and Johannes explain what pickles and peatlands have to do with each other and why a man on snowshoes remotely controls a “lawnmower” in the middle of the bog and the ground smacks. More about this in the “Sendung mit der Maus” on Sunday August 21st at 9:30 a.m. on Erste or at 11:30 a.m. on KiKa. Or already in the media library

Reading recommendations

Book “3 degrees more” and booklet “Political Ecology” hot off the press

05/07/2022 The book "3 degrees more - a look at the impending hot season and how nature can help us prevent it" is published today by oekom-Verlag. Prominent authors such as Hans J. Schellnhuber, Stefan Rahmstorf and Jutta Allmendinger describe what threatens nature and society because we are heading towards such high levels of global warming despite the Paris Climate Agreement, but also how we can prevent the worst. The chapter by Prof. Hans Joosten explains how rewetting peatlands combats the climate crisis. At the same time, Oekom is dedicationg with "Moore - Trumps in the Climate Crisis", an entire issue of the magazine Political Ecology to the topic, co-published by the Succow Foundation. It offers numerous articles by authors from the Greifswald Mire Centre, for example on the climate impact of peatlands, paludiculture, the political and legal framework or the financing of peatland protection measures.

Support farmers now

Open letter to federal ministers

15/06/2022 The MoKli project of the Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre, is sending an open letter to the federal ministers Robert Habeck, Steffi Lemke and Cem Özdemir. Many land users are ready for sustainable farming on moors, but good conditions for this are lacking. In an open letter to the federal ministers Robert Habeck, Steffi Lemke and Cem Özdemir, the Greifswald Mire Centre and the German Association for Landscape Conservation recommend concrete support for an accelerated implementation of climate protection through peatland protection. The rewetting of agriculturally used peatland and subsequent wet use are effective and cost-effective measures of natural climate protection. Many farmers have recognized this and want to make their contribution. But the lack of security in planning, investments and funding makes them hesitate. Experience from the MoKli project confirms that the opportunity to save up to 7% of Germany's greenhouse gas emissions through peatland protection is being missed.

No delay

EU nature restoration law is required now

09/06/2022 Nature-based climate protection through the restoration of ecosystems, such as peatlands, offers an outstanding opportunity to combat the unbridled climate and biodiversity crisis - and an opportunity that must not be wasted. But the EU Commission has postponed the binding EU Nature Restoration Law, which was actually planned for the end of 2021, several times - first to March 2022. It is now scheduled to be published on June 22, 2022. “Law now” is therefore the demand from a network of more than 60 organizations from environmental and nature conservation, science and agriculture in an open letter to the Commission, which was coordinated by the International Moor Protection Group IMCG. In the EU, however, more than 50% of the peatlands are in poor condition; due to drainage, they release large amounts of greenhouse gases and nitrates, and we are losing more and more peatland animals and plants due to habitat destruction. This can be massively improved by rewetting peatlands - and in many cases these areas can still be used for agriculture and forestry! With paludiculture, i.e. “wet agriculture and forestry”, which has recently become part of the European agricultural policy, value creation, bioeconomy and circular economy can be developed in peatland-rich rural areas. In order to draw attention to the great importance of peatlands and to emphasize the need for ambitious rewetting and restoration of peatlands in the new EU Restoration Law - and not to delete them from it, as is feared - a broad network of more than 60 organizations has formed today from environmental and nature conservation, science and agriculture made an urgent appeal to the EU Commission. They are calling for the success of the EU Green Deal to be defended in the EU Nature Restoration Act and to push forward an ambitious policy for the rewetting of drained peatland areas in Europe. In order to achieve the climate protection goals of the Paris Agreement and the EU Climate Law, a transformation path for all peatlands in the EU should lead to net CO2 emissions by 2050. The EU should lead the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration and achieve ambitious biodiversity targets at the upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Kunming, China.

Peatland plants are the best CO2 reservoirs

New paper in Science

06/05/2022 Wetlands such as peatlands, salt marshes, mangrove forests and seagrass beds store about five times more carbon per square metre than forests and 500 times more than oceans, an international team including Greifswald peatland scientist Prof. Dr. Hans Joosten has now shown in a recent article Recovering wetland biogeomorphic feedbacks to restore the world's biotic carbon hotspots. The reason for high carbon storage capacity: In wet ecosystems, plant growth and carbon deposition in the soil stimulate each other. The paper, published in renowned academic journal Science, was co-authored by scientists of the Netherlands Institute of Oceanography (NIOZ), Utrecht University, Radboud University Nijmegen, the University of Groningen and the University of Greifswald. The good news is that protection and restoration of wetlands can help tackle the climate crisis through reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. And, we are getting better at managing and restoring these ecosystems.

Source: Greifswald Mire Centre