Peatland management and climate: Art of rewetting

On March 30, the online seminar focused on “Integrating information on peatland management into climate reporting” was held in Moscow bringing together international academics and practitioners, including FAO experts in this field, and their Russian colleagues. 

Russia considers climate change as one of the most important global challenges, Irina Fominykh, Deputy Head of Department at the Russian Ministry of Nature Resources and Environment, emphasized. The current commitment by the Russian government is to reduce by 70 percent the GHG by 2030 compared to 1990 with due consideration of a “balanced social economic development.”

Anna Romanovskaya, Director of Yu.A.Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, noted the challenge arousing from the absence of normative standards on climate projects and lack of methodologies to report on calculations and analysis.

Leaders of various Russian regions highlighted the importance of rewetting as very important task with plenty of positive benefits like emission reduction and prevention of forest fires. In particular, Alexander Akimov, First Deputy Minister of Natural Resources of the Ryazan Region, reported on peatland fires affecting this region. He stressed the need for aggregating “unified correct information” to ensure verifiable “reporting at regional and national levels.” 

Matthias Fischer, Head of the Department of Economics and Science of the German Embassy in Moscow, accentuated “good cooperation between Germany and Russia, including on climate change” citing a project funded by BMU, implemented by GIZ together with Wetlands International. 

Hans Schutten, Programme Head from Wetlands International, referred to over 25 projects on wetlands inventory, strategies, and communities since 1997. The expert placed special emphasis on the current year due to COP26, as well as to “revised and enhanced NDCs submission.” 

Paris Agreement goal in terms of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 ”requires important changes in the ways we work compared to the past”, Hans Joosten, retiring professor from the University of Greifswald, underlined. There is “no other ecosystem that holds as much carbon per hectare as peatlands, and Russia has more peat than all other countries of the world.” 

The deeper the water table, the larger emissions, the German expert noted. The rule of thumb: every 10 cm that water level drop produces 5 tons of CO2 emissions. Due to drainage, 0,4 percent of land produces 5 percent of all global emissions (2 gigatons CO2 eq/year). “Monitoring is crucial to know how much is reduced,” Prof. Joosten said, also warning, “direct measurement is prohibitively expensive (10 000 euro/year/ha).” 

There is a “key challenge to integrate peatlands into existing national monitoring system”, although all necessary tools are available, Maria Nuutinen, FAO expert on land use and environment, noted calling on “global view on peatland monitoring.” The FAO expert underscored the “importance of baselines before start of rewetting.” 

Dianna Kopansky, UNEP expert on landscapes & biodiversity, Global Peatlands Initiative (GPI), underlined the benefits of joined international effort with 41 partners of the GPI accumulating and sharing “best science and practice available.” She drew attention of the audience to the “lack of recognition of the indigenous knowledge on peatlands” and emphasized “the need to connect people, scientists, and policy makers.” 

In their joint presentation Vladimir Korotkov and Alexander Trunov, key experts of YU.A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, noted the decrease of wetland area of peatlands in Russia while “emissions from drained organic soils, croplands and grasslands located on drained peatlands are increasing.” Moreover, changes in budget financing have negatively affected “collection and archiving of data”, also undermining “the quality of the available information for decision making.” The alarming end-result: “starting from 2008, there is no data on areas of drained peatlands.” 

"Drainage- and fire-related peatland emissions are anthropogenic and need to be included in the national reporting," Larisa Makarova, expert of the Meschersky Research and Technical Centre (city of Ryazan), emphasized in her presentation of a case study "Registration of peatland drainage and rewetting" in the Ryazan Oblast. The conclusion of the study: the current extent of drained and degrading peatlands is comparable to 1990.

«Restoring peatlands is one example of good sustainable development, which can be attractive for companies as elements of carbon markets,” postulated Tatyana Minayeva, Care for Ecosystems/Centre for Protection and Restoration of Peatland Ecosystems (Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Forest Science). The joint Russian-German project, which supports work in numerous sites, “has developed guidance for reporting. The reporting builds on three-fold separation of peat: Biota, water and soil.” 

“Peatland restoration requires tools and serious efforts, including authorization by local authorities,” Anna Romanovskaya, Director of Yu.A. Izrael Institute of Global Climate and Ecology, noted in her closing remarks. “We need to ensure that the rewetting projects are taken into consideration within the Green financing strategy and the attainment of the SDGs.”