Perspectives of global peatland use and conservation

by Hans Joosten

Abstract

Human exploitation has destroyed 800,000 km2 (20%) of the mires on Earth, 50 % by agriculture, 30% by forestry, 10 % by peat extraction, and 10% by infrastructure development. Currently most of these destructive uses are economically no longer viable. Further drainage of mires for agriculture and forestry has largely stopped. The use of peat as an energy source remains only attractive for local socio-economic reasons. The demands for peat for professional horticulture are globally rising, but a first orientation on substitution of fossil peat by renewable resources is underway. Most mire and peatland losses in future are expected to result from infrastructure development (inundation for hydro-electricity, oil and gas exploitation, urbanisation). Indispensable exploitation, incl. peat extraction for growing media, can for now be concentrated on already degraded peatlands (800,000 km2!), but on the longer run sustainability requires the substitution of fossil peat by renewable resources.

The international community is increasingly aware of the environmental problems associated with mire destruction and has recently taken various initiatives for stimulating the conservation and wise use of peatlands. Of special importance are the Guidelines for Global Action for Peatlands (Ramsar Convention, November 2002). The role of peatlands in mitigating climate change is still politically undervalued. In future the environmental functions of mires and peatlands must and will get more attention. This also requires the rewetting of degraded peatlands, which enables the combination of conservational aims (reducing peat oxidation, increasing biodiversity) with sustainable exploitation of biomass. All these developments lead to one conclusion: the Future of Peatlands is in Conservation!

Introduction

Mires and peatlands ^[1] are characterised by the unique ability to accumulate and store as peat dead plant material originating from mosses, sedges, reeds, shrubs, and trees, under waterlogged conditions. Peatlands are the most widespread wetland types in the world, representing 50 to 70 percent of all wetlands and covering more than 4 million km2 (3 %) of the land and freshwater surface of the planet. Peatlands exist on all continents, from tropical to arctic zones, and from sea level to high altitude. The largest known concentrations are found in Canada and Alaska, Northern Europe and Western Siberia, Southeast Asia, and parts of the Amazon basin, where more than 10 % of the land area is covered with peatlands. Mires store about one third of the soil carbon in the world and contain some 10% of the global liquid fresh water volume. Approximately 80% of the original mire area is still in a largely pristine condition. On 25% of this pristine mire area, both in permafrost and in tropical peatlands, net peat accumulation may have stopped because of natural processes and recent climate change. But even then, peat is still actively accumulating on 60% of the former global mire extent.

Human exploitation has altered 800,000 km² of mires so severely that peat accumulation has stopped completely. In contrast to what is often thought, peat extraction is responsible for “only” 10 % of these losses. The available water, nutrients, organic soils, and space have made mires attractive for agriculture and forestry. 80% of global mire losses are attributable to the latter two types of land use. The remaining losses (10%) are largely caused by infrastructure development. As a result of these continuing activities, the global mire resource is decreasing by approximately 1 ‰ per year. The international community is increasingly aware of the global problems that are associated with these changes. This insight has, together with the improved technical possibilities for worldwide communication, led to international conventions related to the conservation and wise use of mires and peatlands. This paper discusses the recent international developments with respect to peatland use and regulation. Unless otherwise indicated references for all data and statements can be found in Joosten & Clarke (2002).

Agriculture

In general one can say, that the era of drainage of virgin mires for agriculture is over, because it is no longer profitable. Drained peatlands lead, certainly in the long term, to so many problems associated with soil degradation, subsidence, and oxidation, that globally a retreat from peatlands to the better and sufficiently available mineral soils can be observed. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and other global economic developments will stimulate this tendency. Currently only few new peatlands are reclaimed. The government of Sarawak (Southeast Asia) has planned the conversion of about 3,000 km² of peatland swamps into agricultural land for oil palm, forest plantation, sago, aquaculture, paddy, and vegetables. In this project, that has to be completed in 2020, a balance is sought between land use, peat characteristics, and sound water management to minimise subsidence and associated environmental problems. The largest recent example of disastrous drainage for agriculture is the Mega Rice Project in Kalimantan (Indonesia) where since 1995 almost 10,000 km² of peatlands were drained for rice production. Without taking the hydraulic and hydromorphological properties of peatlands into account, gigantic drainage canals were dug, leading to subsidence, desiccation, peat oxidation, acidification by sulphide oxidation, and fire hazard. Since 1997 immense, uncontrollable fires ravage the area with enormous environmental consequences.

Forestry

The largest “boom” in peatland drainage for forestry took place in the 1970s, when huge areas were drained in especially Finland, Russia, and Sweden. As also for forestry sufficient better mineral soils are available no further areas are being drained. Existent peatland forests are largely continued which requires maintenance of the drainage systems.

In Russia, where the ditches are often no longer maintained, possibly half of the formerly drained peatland forests are re-paludifying.

Peat extraction for energy

Peat is still an important local or regional energy source in Finland, Ireland, and Sweden. It also continues to be important in the Baltic States, Belarus, and Russia and is in smaller volumes used in many other countries, including China, Indonesia, and Burundi. In recent years technical developments have led to lower, more competitive peat prices. On the other hand the deregulation of the EU electricity market has caused a smaller demand and a clear overcapacity of peat energy. As peat is more expensive and emits more CO2 per unit energy than other fossil fuels, peat as an energy source is only interesting for regional or domestic socio-economic reasons. In Finland and Ireland employment in the rural area is the most important motive, whereas in eastern countries the pursued independence from Russian oil and gas imports and the lack of foreign currency are the driving factors. The volumes of peat necessary for energy generation are, however, huge. It is estimated that by 2020 the formerly peat-rich Ireland will have exhausted all of its peat resources…

Similar to the 1973 Oil Crisis, which led to a re-orientation on fuel peat in Sweden, Finland, the USA, and many other states, global oil politics (cf. Afghanistan, Iraq) may affect the use of peat as an energy source in the near future. The Russian government has the intention to enlarge the domestic use of fuel peat in order to be able to export more oil and gas to the West.

Peat as soil improver

Peat was used as a soil improver and organic fertiliser in great quantities in agriculture in the years 1950-1980 especially in the Soviet Union. This use has largely collapsed since 1991. In Western Europe increasing volumes of composts are produced from organic waste (especially household refuse), which replace peat on the less exacting markets, such as hobby gardening and soil improvement. The price of compost is completely artificial as processing of household refuge is paid by the citizens. Furthermore, since production of composts takes place locally, transport costs are low in comparison to peat. As a result, peat is being ousted from the compost market. In North America, on the contrary, Canadian Sphagnum peat is invading the home gardeners market facilitated by assertive advertising by the peat industry.

Furthermore since the end of the 1980's anti-peat campaigns of environmental groups in Europe, especially in the UK and Ireland, have persuaded the general public and users in the horticultural trade to decrease their use of Sphagnum peat and to use alternatives. The peat industry itself is increasingly developing and supplying these alternatives. Influenced by these societal developments the British government decided in February 2002 to have 90% of the peat currently used in professional horticulture and retail trade replaced by 2010. Consequently the British “Peat Producers Association” has renamed itself in 2002 to “Growing Media Association”.

Peat for horticultural growing media

The most common current use of peat is for horticulture. The modern production of greenhouse and container crops involves the integrated management of water, fertilisers, pesticides, and growing media. Important requirements are uniformity, consistency, and predictability of the final product. Growing uniform, high-quality plants at very high productivity levels demands growing media with the best possible features. Small deviations from the optimum may cause considerable financial losses to greenhouse operation. Professional growers will therefore not necessarily buy the cheapest product, since quality is their primary concern.

Sphagnum peat has emerged as the foremost constituent of growing media because it retains large amounts of water, entraps large volumes of air, and holds large quantities of plant nutrients in readily available form. It has the advantage of a low pH and nutrient content, which facilitate formulation of growing media for a wide range of application by adding nutrients and other materials. In Europe, approximately 95 % of all growing media for the professional and amateur markets are peat-based.

In most countries of Western and Central Europe the stocks of slightly humified Sphagnum peat (white peat) are nearly depleted after centuries of agricultural use and peat extraction. To cover the demands, white peat is imported from Northern and Eastern Europe and Canada in increasing volumes. As demands are rising, stocks are decreasing, and good alternatives in professional horticulture are not (yet) available, the threats for pristine bogs in these areas grow. From the other side we see the already mentioned pressure from environmental groups and increasing requests for environmental certification of peat and peat products from retailers. An important environmental aspect of peat extraction is the carbon emissions associated with peat oxidation. As Reidar Petterson, the former president of the International Peat Society expressed it: “The Stone Age has not ended because of lack of stone. Similarly it will be with peat extraction.”

An interesting and promising initiative to solve these problems is the cultivation of Sphagnum biomass. In Germany the peat industry, agricultural research institutes, and university scientists collaborate to develop a renewable raw material for high-quality horticultural media from fresh Sphagnum (Gaudig & Joosten 2002). In Canada the Canadian Sphagnum Peatmoss Association has in 2002 founded a professorial Industrial Chair of Canada for Peatland Management at the Université Laval (Quebec) with as one of the focal points „Sphagnum farming“ (IMCG Newsletter 2002/4).

Urbanisation

A further use of mires that globally leads to their destruction is urbanisation. This use relates to the location of mires and their capacity for providing space. It is estimated that the 20,000 km² of water reservoirs in Canada have flooded 7,500 km² of wetlands and peatlands. Hydroelectric project development in Canada is therewith a greater threat to mires than all peat extraction, forestry operations, and urban development in that country combined. The increasing demands for “renewable” energy can hence lead to a direct destruction of virgin mires, as is also happening in Scandinavia. In Finland, for example, approximately 900 km² of peatland are covered by water reservoirs. Vast areas of peatlands in Western Siberia and Alaska (Prudhoe Bay) have been destroyed by expanding infrastructure for oil exploration, exploitation, and transport. In Georgia (Caucasia) new harbours and railroads are presently constructed in internationally protected mires in order to carry oil from Azerbaijan to the Black Sea. Also opencast mining leads to important losses of mires in several countries. Substantial peatlands are located in coastal areas, where over 50% of the world’s population lives. Major cities like Amsterdam and St. Petersburg are largely build on peat. Their location near to coastlines makes it tempting to convert mires and peatlands to provide infrastructure for towns and harbours, as can currently be observed in Southeast-Asia.

Worldwide all these types of utilisation cause a destruction of approximately 5.000 km² of mires annually. The area of mires is hence decreasing with 1‰ per year, i.e. with a rate 10 times faster than the expansion of mires during the Holocene.Since 1800, the global area of mires and peatlands has been reduced significantly through human activities. Human pressures on peatlands are both direct, through drainage, land conversion, excavation, and inundation, and indirect, as a result of air pollution, water contamination, water removal, and infrastructure development. The international community is increasingly aware of the wide significance of mires and peatlands. Their wise use is crucial to the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Ramsar Convention, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and other international instruments and agreements.

Ramsar Convention

The first global environmental convention, the Ramsar Convention, has since 1971 developed from a restricted “migrating birds-approach” to an integral ecosystem approach. The regulation functions of mires and peatlands as stores and sinks of carbon, nutrients, and water are increasingly recognised. Therewith the Ramsar Convention moves towards newer environmental conventions like the Bio-Diversity and Climate Conventions.

Although peatlands comprise over 50% of all wetlands on Earth, only a disproportional small part of them is protected as Ramsar Wetlands of International Importance. This discrepancy was first acknowledged in Brisbane in 1996 and eventually led to the adoption of important resolutions in Valencia in November 2002. In its Strategic Plan 2003-2008 the Ramsar Convention stresses the necessity of conservation and wise use of mires and peatlands. Furthermore the Valencia conference approved detailed Guidelines for Global Action on Peatlands (GGAP), which form a framework for national, regional, and international initiatives for peatland conservation, use, and management. The GGAP recommends a series of priority approaches and activities, that include:

- Establishing a global database of peatlands and mires with baseline information on the distribution, size, quality, ecological characteristics, and biological diversity of the peatland resource and the carbon stored in them on the basis of globally standardised terminology and classification;

- Detecting changes and trends in the quantity and quality of the peatland resource by on-the-ground assessment and remote sensing techniques;

- Developing and promoting education, training, and public awareness programmes that explore the ecological, economic, and cultural functions and values of peatlands as well as their importance and relationship with people;

- Reviewing of national networks of peatland protected areas, including – where appropriate – implementing peatland restoration and rehabilitation, to guarantee that the full range of peatland biodiversity is adequately conserved;

- Developing and implementing peatland management guidelines and action plans for ensuring wise and sustainable peatland management on a regional and national scale;

- Establishing regional centres of expertise and research networks to improve understanding of the values and functions of the world’s peatlands, to share knowledge and information, and to guarantee access to information and training facilities for those responsible for policy related to the wise use and exploitation of peatlands. Special opportunities should be sought for cooperative research into the role of peatlands in mitigating the impacts of global climate change;

Stimulating international cooperation on research and technology transfer for peatland wise use. Furthermore the Valencia conference adopted a resolution providing guidance for identifying and designating underrepresented wetland types, including peatlands, as Wetlands of International Importance, and a resolution stressing the relation between wetlands (incl. peatlands) and climate change. For the funding of relevant initiatives the Global Peatland Initiative, a worldwide partnership of Wetlands International, Alterra, IUCN-Netherlands Committee, International Peat Society, and International Mire Conservation Group, was founded. A last important development is the completion of the guidelines for the Wise Use of mires and peatlands by the International Peat Society and the International Mire Conservation Group, of which a first copy was offered to the Ramsar Bureau on 20 November 2002 at Ramsar's COP8 in Valencia.

Convention on Biological Diversity

Mires and peatlands provide a wide range of wildlife habitats supporting important biological diversity, as is recently recognized by the Convention on Biological Diversity. Mires have long remained the last wildernesses in many areas of the world. Their limited accessibility (“too wet to drive and too dry to swim”) protected them against human intervention and has often turned mires into political, cultural, and language borders. This naturalness and virginity is an important motive for their conservation. Mires are generally characterised by extreme conditions (high water level, scarcity of oxygen in the root layer, scarcity of nutrients, continuous peat accumulation and constantly rising water levels, extreme climate conditions, acidity). As a result they are in general relatively poor in species as compared with mineral soils in the same biographic region. Many peatland species are, however, strongly specialised and not found in other habitats. Their inaccessibility and peacefulness have frequently made mires the last refuges of species that have been expelled from intensively used surroundings. In this manner the peat swamps of Borneo and Sumatra are the last refuges for orang-utan (Pongo pygmaeus pygmaeus) in the midst of rigorously logged forests on mineral soils. Various mire types develop sophisticated self-regulation mechanisms over time and acquire an exceptional resilience against climatic change. As a result such mires have characteristics similar to a living organism and are almost ideal examples of ecosystems. Related features are the inherent tendency of mires to develop complex surface patterning and ecosystem biodiversity (mire types).The CBD-Ramsar 3rd Joint Work Plan (2002 – 2006) highlights the contribution of peatlands to global biodiversity. Furthermore the CBD, in close cooperation with Ramsar and the IUCN, is currently preparing criteria to identify components of inland water biological diversity that are important for conservation and sustainable use.

Cultural heritage

A special type of peatland biodiversity is their archive value. Mires constitute ecosystems with an incomplete cycling of material and a consequent continuous accumulation of organic material. They record their own history and that of their wide surroundings in systematic layers, making them particularly suited to the reconstruction of long-term human and environmental history. The data stored in the peat archives include macro-remains of peat-accumulating plants, pollen and spores of plants, including those from the wider surrounding areas and all sorts of materials and substances that one way or another got into the mires, including archaeological objects. These important archives are safe as long as the peats remain water saturated. Also this value has in the meantime been recognized by the Ramsar Convention in its resolution on Cultural values of wetlands (2002). In its “Strategy and Statement of Intent for the Heritage Management of Wetlands” (2001) the European Archaeological Council has furthermore drawn attention to the importance of wetlands for the preservation of cultural features, and argued that there is much common ground in the wetland biodiversity and cultural heritage management of peatlands.

Climate Change

Peatlands are globally important as carbon stores and sinks. The present-day sequestering rate of carbon in global mires is estimated to be 0.04-0.07 x 10¹⁵ g y-1. Because of the simultaneous emission of methane and nitrous oxide pristine mires play, however, an insignificant short term role with respect to global warming. Of much more importance is their role as carbon stores. Peatlands store more carbon than all forests of the world and constitute a global carbon pool of about 412 x 10¹⁵ g C as compared to about 694 x 10¹⁵ g in all global plant biomass, 1,600 x 1015 g in all soils (including peat), and >700 x 10¹⁵ g in the atmosphere (Gorham 1995). The mobilisation of part of that store as a result of peat extraction, peatland agriculture, and forestry leads to annual carbon losses of 0.1 – 0.2 x 10¹⁵ g y-1. Consequently the global peatlands have changed from a sink to a source of CO₂ resulting in an annual reduction of the global peat carbon resource of 0.5 ‰. Catastrophic events, such as the presently recurring fires on drained peatland in SE Asia, may substantially increase these losses. In 1997 between 0.81 and 2.57 10¹⁵ g of carbon were released to the atmosphere as a result of burning peat and vegetation in the peat swamps of Indonesia. This is equivalent to 13–40% of the mean annual global carbon emissions from fossil fuels, and has contributed greatly to the largest annual increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration detected since records began in 1957 (Page et al. 2002).

These aspects are highly relevant for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto-Protocol, which regulates concrete measures to slow down climate change. Until now, the Kyoto-Protocol only recognizes changes in land use related to agriculture and forestry, peatlands are not considered as such.

In the near future the largest dangers for mires may be in the so-called “perverse incentives” for carbon sequestration. The carbon balance in forestry drained boreal peatlands is rather complicated. During the first decennia after drainage carbon sequestration in the more rapidly growing plants (trees, dwarf shrubs) is larger than the carbon release from oxidation of the drained peat. This means that drained and afforested peatlands may be “better” for reducing the greenhouse problem than virgin mires. Depending on the use of the wood it takes decennia up to centuries until the continuing peat oxidation becomes more important than the increase in biomass and litter, because the latter tend to reach equilibrium on the long run. It is important that in the framework of the Kyoto-Protocol such short-term positive but long-term negative effects are not stimulated.

Therefore the IPS and the IMCG in their “Freising Statement” (November 1999, www.imcg.net/docum/ freising.htm) have requested the UNFCCC to take actions to

-         Promote the maintenance of existing carbon stores in peatlands;

-         Prevent the uncontrolled release of carbon from peatlands;

-         Maintain the carbon sequestering role of pristine peatlands;

-         Promote the restoration of disturbed peatlands for carbon sequestration;

-         Reduce, by wise use, the emissions of greenhouse gases from peatlands currently being used;

-         Promote further studies on carbon balance in peatlands and its role in global climate change.

Undoubtedly the changing climate will affect mires and their carbon sequestration and storage behaviour. Palaeo-ecological research shows that, as long as mires are in virgin conditions, they have a large resilience against climate change. This implies that climate change and biodiversity policy should aim at minimizing anthropogenic stress factors, especially drainage.

Conclusion

There is no longer any rationale for destructive exploitation of virgin mires. Peatland agriculture and forestry and peat extraction for energy are economically outdated, but locally still may have some socio-economic importance. Most mire and peatland losses in future are expected to result from infrastructure development (inundation for hydro-electricity, oil and gas exploitation, urbanisation). Indispensable exploitation, incl. peat extraction for growing media, can for now be concentrated on already degraded peatlands (800.000 km²!), but on the longer run sustainability requires the substitution of fossil peat by renewable resources. In future the environmental functions of mires and peatlands must and will get more attention.

This also requires the rewetting of degraded peatlands, which enables the combination of conservational aims (reducing peat oxidation, increasing biodiversity) with sustainable exploitation of biomass (Table 1). All these developments lead to one conclusion: the Future of Peatlands is in Conservation!

Table 1: Biomass exploitation options for Central European degraded peatlands after rewetting.Table 1: Biomass exploitation options for Central European degraded peatlands after rewetting.

References
Gaudig, G. & Joosten, H. 2002. Peat moss (Sphagnum) as a renewable resource - an alternative to Sphagnum peat in horticulture. In: Schmilewski, G. & Rochefort, L. (eds.): Peat in horticulture. Quality and environmental challenges. 117-125; Jyväskylä (International Peat Society)
Gorham, E. 1995. The biogeochemistry of northern peatlands and its possible responses to global warming. In: Woodwell, G.M. & Mackenzie, F.T. (eds.): Biotic Feedbacks in the Global Climate System: Will the Warming Feed the Warming? 169-186; Oxford (Oxford University Press)
Joosten, H. & Clarke, D. 2002. Wise use of mires and peatland - Background and principles including a framework for decision-making. 304 p.; (International Mire Conservation Group / International Peat Society)