22nd June 2022, Greifswald, Germany / Brussels Today, after several postponements, the European Commission published the long-awaited draft of the EU Restoration Law. As an essential component of the EU Green Deal, it sets binding targets for the restoration of ecosystems, for example peatlands. The outstanding opportunity of nature-based measures as peatland action to counter the currently unchecked climate and biodiversity crisis is strongly recognised by the European Commission. "We welcome the highlighted role of peatlands in the legislative draft. Setting specific and binding targets for Member States for their peatland rewetting - including on agricultural and forestry land - is a real milestone in climate and biodiversity protection. EU legislators and Member States should definitely seize this opportunity ambitiously for the success of the Green Deal." comments Jan Peters, Executive Director of the Michael Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre. The draft law sets as goals for peatland protection that that at least 30% of the agricultural peatland area must be restored by 2030, at least 50% by 2040 and at least 70% by 2050. In this context, the restoration of peat extraction areas can be counted towards the targets. As a first important step, these goals must be defended at all costs. However, in order to achieve the climate protection targets of the Paris Agreement and the EU FtiFor55 climate package, a transformation pathway for full rewetting of all peatlands in the EU should lead to net CO2 emissions by 2050. The EU should take the lead in the UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration and achieve ambitious biodiversity targets at the next Biodiversity Convention conference in Canada. More than 50% of peatlands in the EU are still in poor condition, they release large amounts of greenhouse gases as well as nitrates due to drainage, 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 also become part of the European Agricultural Policy, value creation, and circular bio-economy can be developed in peatland-rich rural areas. At the beginning of June, a network of more than 60 organisations from environmental protection, nature conservation, science and agriculture called for ambitious goals for peatland protection in an open letter to the Commission, which was coordinated by the International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG). The Michael Succow Foundation, a partner in the Greifswald Mire Centre, was a signatory. |
