by Hans Joosten
With the publication of the DVD “Wise Use of Peatlands” on the occasion of the 12th International Peat Congress, the International Peat Society (IPS) has – again, see IMCG Newsletter 2004-2 – exposed itself as a unilateral peat extraction lobby and not the wide peatland organization that it claims to be. It illustrates that the organization still has not interiorised the principles of “wise use”.
In May 2002, a consortium of peat extraction industries from Canada, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, Germany, France, and the Netherlands decided to produce a professional DVD based on the IPS/IMCG book “Wise Use of mires and peatlands”. In the joint IMCG/IPS meeting of November 2003 (Amsterdam) IMCG confirmed that every interest group has the right to use the wise use idea with its own focus, but also expressed that it would be unacceptable if the IPS-Commission II associated industry-consortium would use the “wise use” concept in another, less subtle way than the joint IPS/IMCG book. The consortium (of which many representatives are members of the IPS Executive Committee) thereupon enabled IMCG to comment on the draft texts, which we have done – mostly under severest time pressure.
The result may be shown. It has become a highly professional DVD (costs € 160,000) with nice pictures and a lot of factual information on the functions and values of peat and peatlands. The DVD includes a 19 minutes long main documentary “Wise Use of Peatlands” and 8 shorter movies on “bog and peat development,” “extent and locations of peatlands,” “natural functions of peatlands,” “peat in horticulture,” “peat in energy production,” “peat production management,” “after use of peatlands,” and “wise use of peatlands.” The DVD furthermore contains a picture gallery with photos of peatland plants, peatlands, and peatland uses, and a lot of statistics from the IPS/IMCG Wise Use book. I will certainly use the DVD in my university course on peatland utilisation.
My main criticism, both as an IMCG representative and as an IPS member, does not primarily concern the content but most of all the labeling of the DVD. In the last days of DVD development, it was decided to present the DVD as an IPS product, not as the product of the peat extraction consortium. This decision was not supported by adequate decisions of the IPS Executive Committee, but unilaterally decided by the consortium members.
The largest part (14 minutes) of the 19 minutes lasting central documentary deals only about how peat is used for horticulture, energy, and other applications. This is understandable and fully justifiable for an industry CD but not for an IPS that claims to represent all aspects and interest with respect to peatlands worldwide. Other values of peatlands are indeed presented in the shorter movies of the CD but also there they remain underexposed in comparison to the attention paid to peat extraction, uses of peat, and after use of cut-over peatlands. The “IPS” DVD now spreads the wrong impression that peat extraction is the major example of the wise use of peatlands and other functions and values of peatlands are of lower value. And the whole procedure shows that IPS is – next to financially dependent on the peat lobby – also overly industry minded and democratically underdeveloped. Not the IPS Executive Board of IPS decides how IPS exposes itself, but a group of peat extractors that “forget” that they also are IPS Executive Board members with other responsibilities.
The central documentary ends with the true words: “The challenge for all of us, from policy makers to land-use planners, from peatland users to peatland conservationists, really, all of us, is to apply wise use principles in the management and utilizaton of peatlands.”
Here the industry had been able to show that she really supports the wise use process by explaining what these wise use principles mean for her daily practise.
How does she balance the pros and cons of peat extraction? How will she assess the effects of peat extraction and combustion on all other functions of peatlands and the whole human environment? When will she start to use terms in a clear and consistent way, instead of using “renewable” and “biofuel” solely for fiscal propaganda purposes? How will she limit her interventions to the necessary minimum, instead of striving for expansion of peat use to applications for which environmentally less harmful alternatives are readily and abundantly available? How does she fill in the wise-use guideline to relocate activities to where they cause least impact, i.e. focusing on drained peatlands instead of opening up virgin mires? How will she prevent possible serious damage e.g. in terms of climate change and protected species?
How does she see her responsibility in solving the problems of the world? What is the concrete commitment of the industry? What does wise use mean for peat extraction? “Walter, where is the beef?”
With the DVD the industry has done a valuable job in making wise use thinking available to a larger public in an attractive way. She has, however, missed a nice chance of working out and presenting her own reference for wise use, for formulating peat extraction related wise use guidelines and indicators, and for demonstrating self-control and commitment.
With the IPS label of the DVD the IPS shows again that she is not (yet) a platform where different societal interests meet and exchange knowledge and ideas on the wisest use of peatlands. In contrast she illustrates that she speaks the words of the hand that feeds her. An unwise label for a wise use DVD…