During our September 2004 General Assembly in Paarl (South Africa), a total of eight resolutions were adopted (see the full texts under www.imcg.net/docum/sa04/sa04.htm#a2). Recently we received some very interesting reactions.
In its resolution to China, IMCG urged the central Government of China and the provincial administrations,
- To urgently make an inventory of undrained peatland sites and to protect these sites and their catchments, also as Ramsar sites;
- To restore degraded peatlands and to develop and implement wise use management systems for agricultural peatlands;
- To improve awareness and understanding of peatlands functions and to stimulate and support scientific research and international cooperation in peatland conservation, management, and wise use.
The State Forestry Administration of China, the Chinese Ramsar Convention implementation agency, has now forwarded the letter to our IMCG Main Board member Meng Xianmin with the request that the Northeast Normal University in Changchun (with an important concentration of peatland expertise in its Mire and Peat Institute, where Meng is working) plays a central role in organizing information communication and training in peatland protection.
Meng is preparing now a workshop on peatland conservation in China next summer with officers from the central government of China, managers of peatland reserves, professional peatland researchers from relevant universities and research institutes, and foreign experts. The Sino-German Science Centre is interested to support such workshop.
As we wrote in our Resolution: “The International Mire Conservation Group will be pleased to assist in these important tasks by contributing its expertise and providing training facilities in peatland ecology, conservation, management, and wise use …and to support community participation, education, and public awareness raising.”
IMCG will now further address the Department of Science and Technique of the Ministry of Education of China, which is in charge of wetland education and public awareness in China, and the Department of Countryside and Social development of the Ministry of Science and Technology, which is in charge of research programme management with respect to peatlands in China.
In our Resolution to the European Union, the United Nations, and the Global Environmental Facility, we noted with concern that peat is increasingly being promoted as a renewable fuel. In this way, the Russian Ministry of Economy and Trade had applied for a grant of over 20 million US$ from the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) to fund its “Renewable Energy Program (RREP)” in which peat is presented as a renewable resource.
In our resolution we made an in-depth analysis of the sophisms of the peat lobby. This analysis convinced the Global Environmental Facility (www.gefweb.org). In its letter from April 13, 2005, GEF responded:
“We share your concern about the preservation of peatlands. Not only are they not renewable on a societal time scale; their low rate of renewal is also too slow to be relevant for the objective of climate change mitigation. As a matter of general policy, we therefore do not endorse peat as a renewable energy resource.
If peat fuels were mentioned in the Russia Program, it was an oversight on our part, and we apologize for that. We will pay heed that in the further development of this project and the GEF renewables portfolio, peat will be excluded from the support of the GEF. Unfortunately, however, this might not influence the definitions and terminology that governments are using for their national legislation, as we are a country driven mechanism, but it will ensure that GEF resources are not used for promoting peat.”
An important decision that should be widely used against similar false assumptions in Finland, Sweden, and the European Union, that all provide peat with tax reductions because of its alleged renewability.
Our IMCG Resolution to the Czech Republic noted that, though protected by preliminary legislation, the Krušnohorí mires deserve further acknowledgement at the national level and subsequent recognition as a Ramsar Site.
On May 13, 2005, the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic informed IMCG that Minister Ambrozek had approved the proposal of the Czech Ramsar Committee to include the Krusnohorí mires as 12th Czech Ramsar Site in the List of Ramsar Sites and that the request will be delivered to the Ramsar Secretariat at the meeting of the Standing Committee June 7 – 10, 2005. Congratulations to the Czech Republic and the Krusnohorí mires!
No news was received to date about the other issues raised in the resolution:
- The proposed retraction of the Law of 1956 that allows utilization of pristine peatlands and irreversible damage to natural peatland ecosystems,
- The development of adequate programmes of expert evaluation, monitoring, and conservation of mires within Natura 2000 sites,
- The conservation of small peatlands in humid mountains and floodplains, and
- Sufficient attention to the water regime and the hydrological connections of peatlands and their surroundings.
In its resolution to Germany and Lower Saxony, IMCG addressed the issue of the Esterweger Dose, the largest bog complex in Lower Saxony. We criticized how, reacting on lobby from the peat industry, the new Minister of Environment had stopped the – almost completed – process of designating the Esterweger Dose as a nature reserve. We stressed how this may severely hamper the long-term integrated development of the area as one of the most extensive and most promising bog restoration sites of West and Central Europe.
In its letter of June 1st, 2005, the Ministry of Environment of Lower Saxony affirms that all relevant areas have been reported as protected areas under to the EU Habitat Directive, a status that has been confirmed by the European Commission in December 2004. Furthermore the whole area is a Protected Bird Area according to the European Birds Directive.
To secure the area it was planned to assign a nature conservation area. During that process many comments and doubts were raised, that now have to be evaluated by the responsible authority. The peat industry has demanded to exclude those parts of the Esterweger Dose complex, where peat mining is still continuing. It took much time to go through all these objections. “Your statement that the protection process was stopped, is from that point of view not correct”.
The Ministry ends its letter with: “I hope, that this protection process will be completed in a foreseeable future, moreover because I am convinced, that no major differences exist with respect to the long-term conservation concepts for the area.” So far the Ministry.
What is the actual situation:
- The process of preparing the designation of the whole Esterweger Dose- complex as a nature reserve started 2000 and was completed by the administration in 2003.
- After the elections in Lower Saxony (Feb 2003) the peat lobby successfully convinced the new minister not to protect areas, where peat excavation is still going on. This is important for the peat industry, because it is much easier to change peat mining permits, if an area is not protected.
- Ironically, the peat industry has caused the largest damages to the Esterweger Dose complex by extracting more peat than was allowed. The local authorities are still fighting for a compensation for these damages – which is not easy, when the Minister of Environment himself does not support his own policy.
- Even more ironically, Pluvialis apricaria, which is very rare in Lower Saxony, has its largest (if one can call 4-8 pairs “large”) breeding grounds in the Esterweger Dose, exactly in those parts, where peat extraction is still going on. The presence of Golden Plover is exactly the reason, why this area is a Bird protection area (SPA).
- What the letter does not mention is the fact, that the Minister wants to sign for a conservation area that does not include the centre of the mire complex, where Pluvialis apricaria is found. This is also the area, where the two largest peat miners - Klasmann-Deilmann and Griendtsveen – want to expand their peat extraction activities.
This means that the Esterweger Dose is still endangered by peat industry and nowadays also by a minister, who ignores Lower Saxony’s responsibility for bog conservation in Germany. The Esterweger Dose is not the only mire complex that is endangered in this way. The same accounts for the Vehnemoor-complex, the Aschendorfer Obermoor-complex, the Dalum-Wietmarscher Moor, the Georgsdorfer Moor, the Huvenhoopsmoor and so on.
In a World, where even developing countries are beginning to recognize the values of mires, in this part of Germany the peat industry still has a stronghold and, due to the new government, is able to prevent the necessary protection of – for example – the whole Esterweger Dose-complex.
IMCG is looking forward to a more active role of Lower Saxony in mire protection.