Like a jar of pickles

John Crump

By GRID-Arendal

December 21^st, 2017

“Paris made the world simple.”

That’s the view of Hans Joosten from the University of Greifswald in Northern Germany. Joosten is one of the world’s leading experts on peatlands and was one of the authors of Smoke on Water – Countering Global Threats from Peatland Loss and Degradation, a Rapid Response Assessment produced by GRID-Arendal and UN Environment.

Joosten was speaking to a crowded room at this week’s Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn, Germany. The discussion was organized by the Global Peatlands Initiative to delve into the report and its messages.

Peatlands are made up of thick peat layers of partly decomposed organic material that may have formed over thousands of years and are highly effective at storing carbon. Keeping them wet, and in the ground, will prevent massive amounts of carbon from entering the atmosphere as CO2 and assist in achieving the greenhouse gas reductions under the Paris climate agreement.

“Peatlands are like a jar of pickles,” Joosten said. “If you remove the water, the remaining material rots away.”

Peatlands are found on only three per cent of the world’s land but hold twice as much carbon as all the forests combined. Nevertheless, peatlands account for 30 per cent of all emissions from agriculture, he explained. “We cannot afford to not address peatlands if we want to achieve the Paris goals.”

Where peatlands have been drained, they can often be rewetted, he said, pointing to Indonesia as an example. “Indonesia has rewetted more peatland than all of Europe has done in all of its history.”

Joosten was joined on stage by a few of the 30 Smoke on Water contributors and a representative of the Indonesian government’s Peatlands Restoration Agency.

Lera Miles from the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in England pointed to a major problem: “We still don’t know where all the peatlands are.” Miles used a massive peatland area recently “discovered” in the Congo River basin as an example. An area the size of England, these peatlands are still in a natural state, for now.

“This huge stock makes a valuable to the picture,” she said, adding that much of the region, still in its natural state, supports the livelihoods of thousands of people. However, there are threats to this region “around the boundary” – oil and gas, mining and forestry concessions could bring with them roads and other development.

From Global Landscapes Forum in Bonn. Photo: John Crump

She said there is good news in the fact that both the Congo Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which share the river basin, have agreed on joint management of three Ramsar sites in the area covering a total of 129,000 square kilometres. “Overall, I feel very positive.”

However, governments won’t get the job of protecting peatlands done by themselves. That’s where private finance comes in, said Anna van Paddenburg with the Global Green Growth Institute. What’s needed is a “business case” to attract private investors, something van Paddenburg wrote about in Smoke on Water.

The way to create a market, she said, is through a “landscape approach” that looks at what kind of economic activities can take place around the margins of peatlands. Government investment is used to protect and restore core zones of peatlands. Van Paddenburg said this builds in turn will build investor confidence. Private capital will be channeled towards sustainable economic activities in the outer zones of the peatland area.

Van Paddenburg’s organization is building a business model based on the gelam tree which produces light, high demand timber for furniture. Its leaves provide oil and the fact that it flowers all year provides a constant source of honey production.

“It’s still a risky business,” she added, “not the usual pulp and paper operation on peatlands.”

Alue Duong of Indonesian Peatlands Restoration Agency outlined the “3Rs” that sum up his country’s approach: “rewetting, revegetation and revitalization of local livelihoods.” The new business approach van Paddenburg outlined support these approaches.

Smoke on Water is raising awareness about the importance of peatlands, said Tobias Salathé, a senior advisor with the Ramsar Convention Secretariat. The Ramsar Convention focusses on the importance of conserving global wetlands.

Smoke on Water is raising awareness about the importance of peatlands, Salathé said. “One hectare of drained peatlands produces as much CO2 as flying three times around the world.”

A major message in the report is that to preserve peatlands, he said, governments, business, NGOs and communities need to work together. International conventions designed to protect the environment need to be reviewed.