Paludiculture Newsletter 5|2024

Jointly organised by Greifswald Mire Centre and Thünen Institute the 4th RRR Conference "Renewable Resources from Wet and Rewetted Peatlands" will take place in Greifswald from 23rd – 26th September 2025.

Rewetting peatlands and sustainable land-use concepts are key to tackling climate change. To advance peatland solutions the 4th RRR Conference aims to converge science and practice and invites scientists, landowners and land users, as well as people from administration, business, arts and design, policy and conservation, and other interested people.

Join us to take a look and celebrate 25 years of paludiculture advancements and to dive into topics like governance, transformation, ecosystem processes,biodiversity, biomass utilisation, technology development and photovoltaics on rewetted peatlands. Besides scientific lectures participate in workshops, poster sessions and exhibitions. An entire afternoon is dedicated to highlight practical experiences. Thus, contractors, manufacturers, and other stakeholders, will have the opportunitiy to showcase their products in an exhibition and to present their projects in pitches on a stage
In addition, excursions will lead to a Typha farming site in the Peene valley, a coastal flood peatland restoration with grazing (Karrendorfer Wiesen) and to buffalo grazing in coastal peatlands (Darss peninsula) - all three sites are located in Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania. Another excursion to a Sphagnum paludiculture site is destined to Hankhauser Moor in Lower Saxony.

Registration will be possible from beginning of 2025 und abstracts may submitted until 28th February 2025. You may find all information in detail on the RRR-conference website.
If you would like to contribute by offering a workshop or showcasing your project at the exhibition you may contact info@rrr2025.com.

Northern Ukraine is the focus of an ambitious project dedicated to peatland rewetting and climate protection. The Succow Foundation, partner of the Greifswald Mire Center, is working together with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the project “Promotion of sustainable pasture management and ecosystem protection in northern Ukraine”. The project is financed by the Global Environment Facility and the FOLUR platform. The aim of the pilot project is to convert the management of three million hectares to organic farming in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve soil fertility and protect endangered species.

A central component of the project is paludiculture, the only sustainable form of wet peatland management that helps to reduce carbon emissions by rewetting and using the peatlands. Wendelin Wichtmann and Olga Denyshchyk from the Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswad Mire Centre, were commissioned to examine the feasibility of paludiculture in Ukraine, taking into account the specific conditions of Ukraine. They compiled a scientifically based compendium, which is now available in Ukrainian.

The compendium is intended for farmers, representatives of local communities, the scientific community, and civil society. Its purpose is to provide a scientific basis for the implementation of internationally recognized environmentally-oriented agricultural practices, particularly on wet peatlands, adapted to the unique conditions of Ukraine. The compendium also provides recommendations for the application of paludiculture practices on restored peatlands, combining environmentally-oriented solutions with economic efficiency.This is the first collection in Ukraine that contains scientific information about paludiculture a sustainable land-use method, already being implemented in European Union member states.

‘WETSCAPES2.0: novel ecosystems in rewetted fen landscapes’ will investigate the functioning and complex ecological, biogeochemical and hydrological processes in rewetted fens. The funding from the German Research Foundation was acquired by the Universities of Greifswald and Rostock together with the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB Berlin), the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ), the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Jena (MPI-BGC) and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (HU).

The background: peatlands have been drained for centuries, which has led to significant greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient discharge into watercourses and neighbouring ecosystems as well as massive losses of biodiversity. Rewetting programmes across Europe are now intended to reverse these negative effects. However, this is not restoring the original peatlands, but creating new types of ecosystems, the functioning of which is still only partially understood.

The research network aims to better understand the functioning and complex ecological, biogeochemical and hydrological processes in rewetted fens. It will investigate the effects of rewetting peatlands in space and time at landscape level and beyond. In the long term, concrete contributions to the management of these areas and to sustainable utilisation through paludiculture will be developed.

WETSCAPES 2.0 strengthens cutting-edge research in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and also makes a decisive contribution to addressing global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss and advancing nature-based solutions locally. Knowledge transfer and the communication of research topics for greater social acceptance will take place in close cooperation with the Greifswald Mire Centre.

The DFG's Collaborative Research Centres (SFB) are long-term research institutions at universities in which scientists work together as part of an interdisciplinary research programme. Innovative, challenging, complex and long-term projects can be realised in the Collaborative Research Centres by coordinating and concentrating people and resources at the applicant universities. They serve to develop institutional priorities and structures.

More information can be found in the media information of the University of Greifswald.

EIN:FLUSS:RAUM:MOOR, the joint exhibition by MONAS-Collective and Greifswald Mire Centre, presented peatland in a sound and light artwork inspired by Caspar David Friedrich and his fascination with landscape. In the painter's anniversary year, the exhibition was on display from October 31st - December 8th at the Spielhalle Kunst in Greifswald. It combined climate data, audio recordings, light projections and exhibits. The artists captured the sound with ground microphones at the Kieshofer Moor and Karrendorfer Wiesen near Greifswald. Combined with data from greenhouse gas measurements by scientists of Greifswald Mire Centre, these were converted into light pulses in the exhibition. The visitors present also influenced the system, as the installation also measured CO₂ values in the room in real time, for example. This film conveys the exhibition’s unusual experience of beauty and significance of the peatland landscape in this sound and image sculpture. By the way - the peat mosses as part of the exhibition are contributions from the MOOSstart and MOOSland projects.

The OSTSEESTIFTUNG submitted two projects to the UN Decade project competition on marine and coastal ecosystems - and both reached the final round and can now hold the title ‘TOP 10 Project 2024’. This title was awarded on 3rd September to projects that are particularly committed to the restoration, conservation or maintenance of ecosystems in Germany.

Both projects, the joint project Networked Diversity on the Treasure Coast, which has been active since 2021, and the project Peatland Climate Protection on the Baltic Sea Coast, which was approved in spring 2024, are coordinated by the OSTSEESTIFTUNG and implemented in collaboration with partners. The coastal landscape of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is at the centre of both projects.

‘We are delighted to receive this award,’ says Georg Nikelski, Managing Director of the OSTSEESTIFTUNG, ’which also recognises our many partners and supporters across the region. Those involved on the ground are ultimately the ones who ensure that restoration projects and plantings are preserved and maintained. Coastal peatlands, field hedges and reed beds are important ecological niches that provide habitats for many endangered key species,’ says Nikelski.

As part of the Baltic Sea coastal peatland climate protection project, several diked sections of coastline between Rostock and the Polish Baltic Sea are to be restored by 2034, covering an estimated total area of 850 hectares. The aim is to significantly reduce the ongoing release of climate-damaging gases such as CO2. Gerald Jurasinski, Professor of Peatland Science at the University of Greifswald, partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre, and Professor Maren Voß from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde are responsible for the accompanying scientific research as partners of the OSTSEESTIFTUNG.

The data and knowledge gained over the years will enable a more effective approach to the restoration of coastal peatlands with predictable effects for climate and nature conservation in the future. The project is funded by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) as part of the Natural Climate Protection Action Programme with funds from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Annette Mihatsch

Researchers from the Thünen Institute in Braunschweig conducted a workshop with experts from the PaludiNetz projects on addressing and describing peat soils and a test on the comparability of measurements on trafficability as part of the PaludiZentrale joint project.

Information on the initial condition of a peatland soil is of crucial importance for the successful implementation of rewetting measures and the establishment of paludicultures, which is the aim of the PaludiNetz projects. It can be charcterised  both by their natural development history and by anthropogenic interventions such as drainage and agricultural utilisation. However, overarching statements are only possible if peatland soils are analysed and described using comparable criteria and methods. In order to establish cross-project methods, the PaludiZentrale joint project of Thünen Institute, University of Greifswald and Succow Foundation held a soil workshop in Osterholz-Scharmbeck from 25th-27th September 2024. which was attended by experts.

The workshop was a complete success for both organisers and participants and laid a further basis for successful collaboration in the PaludiNetz in the coming years. Special thanks go to the two local farmers who made their land available for the workshop. PaludiZentrale is funded by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) from the Special Climate and Transformation Fund through the Agency for Renewable Resources (FNR).

Merten Minke und Annelie Säurich

Why is more capacity needed for peatland climate protection? And how can this be set up? At MENSCHEN.MACHEN.MOORE., the final conference of the project “Peatland Climate Protection through Capacity Building” (MoKKA), around 140 experts and interested participants came together in Schwerin on November 7th to discuss these questions. Legal hurdles, deficits in education and training and the need for support for project sponsors of peatland projects were addressed in presentations, discussion rounds and workshops. The conference also highlighted the urgency of structural and educational policy measures for peatland climate protection.

The welcome speech  was given by Dr. Franziska Tanneberger (Greifswald Mire Centre) and Georg Nikelski (OSTSEESTIFTUNG), accompanied by words of welcome from State Secretary Elisabeth Aßmann from the Ministry for Climate Protection, Agriculture, Rural Areas and the Environment of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Helmut Alda from the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection. “You have been doing a very, very good job for many, many years. Thank you very much for that. We are trying to provide the best possible support and take care of the legal and funding issues. And I believe that together we can still achieve a great deal in the coming years and decades. Because Menschen Machen Moore Nass!“, said Elisabeth Aßmann.

Afterwards, Christina Lechtape (Michael Succow Foundation/Greifswald Mire Centre), MoKKa project coordinator, gave a keynote speech on which stakeholder groups are particularly important for peatland climate protection, what they need for more implementation and how they can be supported. “We need more networking and knowledge transfer in the field of peatland climate protection! The interest is there, but the capacities and opportunities are still very limited. Actors who want to take concrete action or implement projects need suitable training and individual advice,” said Christina Lechtape, MoKKa.

The first session dealt with the question of how planning and approval can be accelerated and how land availability can be improved. Keynote speeches by Sophie Hirschelmann (Michael Succow Foundation/Greifswald Mire Centre) and Prof. Sabine Schlacke (Institute for Energy, Environmental and Maritime Law, University of Greifswald) addressed legal hurdles and obstacles in procedures as well as possible framework conditions. Representatives from the BMUV, LM MV and the Brandenburg State Office for the Environment took part in the subsequent discussion on specific solutions. At the same time, the workshop “Peatland climate education with the peatland suitcase” took place, in which the Succow Foundation's new methods for educational work in the field of peatland climate protection were presented and tested in practice. The workshop was led by Hannah Marx (Michael Succow Foundation/Greifswald Mire Centre). After the lunch break, the program continued with a joint activity in which the participants played different roles in a moor. In the afternoon, the topic of “Building support structures” was addressed. First, the user perspective offered insights into the practical requirements and experiences of peatland projects through short impulses from participants of the field days and short films from the project).

The institutional perspective was then included, with presentations by Dr. Almut Mrotzek (MoorAgentur MV) and Tom Kirschey (Competence Center for Natural Climate Protection), who reported on support options and funding structures. Finally, the focus was on the question "More peatland formation - when and how?" In her keynote speech, Tabea Feldmann made clear that sustainable development in Germany is only possible if peatlands become part of general education. A panel discussion with Dr. Martina Trümper (Ministry of Education and Child Daycare Support MV) and Prof. Gerald Jurasinski (University of Greifswald) examined how the topic of peatland climate protection can be better integrated into education and training in order to create social awareness of the importance of peatlands.

Nathale Melo-Martin