A new international peatland journal

As you could already read in the IMCG Newsletter of December 2003, the International Peat Society (IPS) and the International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) are investigating the possibilities to establish a peer-reviewed Internet journal focusing specifically on mires, peatlands, and peat. A new Journal with a new name (the current favourite is Mires and Peat – The International Journal of Peatland Research) that is truly “free-to-users” with NO subscriptions and NO publication charges, so that it will be immediately accessible to authors and subscribers worldwide. In the past months much progress has been made in preparing the technicalities of such a journal.

The IPS Executive Board has in its meeting of November 2004 agreed with the initiative and has allocated funds for the journal. Also the IMCG Board had expressed its positive attitude towards the Journal. On the IMCG General Assembly in Paarl (South Africa), however, some IMCG members raised doubts and it was agreed to discuss the issue further in the IMCG Newsletter. This article wants to give some general information on how the Journal is currently envisaged. Elsewhere in this Newsletter you will find discussion contributions on the journal. We will also offer room for exchange of ideas in the next IMCG Newsletter of December 2004 (please send your contributions to the IMCG Secretariat), after which the IMCG Main Board will take a final decision whether or not to proceed with a joined Journal with IPS.

The Journal plans to publish high-quality scientific papers on all aspects of peatland science, technology and wise use, including: - (palaeo)ecology, hydrology, geology, distribution, and status of mires and peatlands; - biological, physical, and chemical characteristics of peat; - technological, socio-economic, cultural, and ethical aspects of peatland conservation, use, and management - climate change and peatlands. Short communications, review articles, and book reviews on these and related topics will also be considered; and suggestions for special issues of the Journal based on the proceedings of conferences, seminars, symposia, and workshops will be welcomed. The submission of material by authors and from countries whose work would otherwise be inaccessible to the international community is particularly encouraged.

A new high quality editorial board will be installed. Olivia Bragg (IMCG) will be editor-in chief, whereas Jack Rieley (IPS) will assist her as co-editor. Papers must be written in English. Papers should not, as a rule, exceed 6,000 words or 20 printed pages, including Figures and Tables. Papers exceeding this limit should be discussed with the Editor. Each article will be reviewed by at least two referees. Mires and Peat will be published jointly by the International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) and the International Peat Society (IPS, whose International Peat Journal ceased publication with Issue No. 12 in June 2004). If you have any comments or suggestions please contact Olivia Bragg under o.m.bragg@dundee.ac.uk, copying to olivia4@uel.ac.uk.

During the General Assembly in Paarl, South Africa I heard for the first time that there were plans to launch a new scientific journal with a focus on peat and mires. It would be an on-line journal, freely available and would be a fine scientific basis for both IMCG and IPS membership. Two well-known scientists from IPS/IMCG would be editors of the new journal. Which IMCG members could possibly object to such an initiative?

Well, at the meeting in Paarl several members of the IMCG did express doubts. And I, being one of them, will try to put this criticism into perspectives. The positive side of a new on-line non-commercial journal is of course that it can publish articles quickly and cheaply. The new journal might also contribute to a better concentration of scientific work on mires, ecohydrology, mire conservation, and peat use, thus preventing articles on mires and peat to be spread very thinly over very many journals. Another obvious advantage is that the journal could assist in getting articles published that most other journals would reject, not because they are bad, but because they do not fit the scope of the journal, they are too descriptive, or that the editor/reviewer does not like peat or mires.

The negative side of a new journal is that it has to prove itself in order to get an ISI citation index (you get a high score if your article is cited by many other articles). This horrible way of evaluating scientific production is gaining momentum in most of the established scientific community. Not only “established” scientists feel the heat of ‘publish or perish’, but especially young scientists have to prove themselves, by publishing in ISI-journals. Encouraging people to publish in a journal that has not yet proved itself and that might take 1-5 years to get ISI accreditation (or will never reach that stage), is not in the interest of many mire scientists. I would like to point at the fate of the Journal of Coastal Conservation (JCC). Everyone involved in Coastal Conservation thought that there would be enough interest in Coastal Conservation in Europe to start a new journal, although another America based journal on Coastal Research already existed. After almost 10 years, no ISI accreditation is in sight, appearance is irregular and the flow of submitted articles stays far behind expectation. I must admit that Applied Vegetation Science did much better and will have an ISI index after about 5-6 years. I am sure that more successful journals can be mentioned, but the crucial question is: can IMCG and IPS together make a flying start and keep momentum in this struggle for survival? I doubt that very much. The IPS journal IPJ (International Peat Journal) has a bad record of appearing.

Another peat journal Telma is appearing regularly, but only once a year, and IMCG is very busy with publishing books (which I think is a very efficient way of spreading information on mires). So where will the articles come from? I suppose that a new peat journal will attract interest from the following sources:

a) descriptive studies on mires that have little chance of appearing in ISI journals,

b) newcomers in peat science that have not yet much experience in writing papers,

This mix will not gain ISI accreditation soon, which will lead to much disappointment and ‘sacrificing good papers’ for a noble cause. I doubt if many mire scientists will act against their own interest. I think there is a good alternative that will be much more positive and less risky. There is a saying: if you cannot beat them, join them. At least two journals exist that compete for the same type of articles: Wetlands and Restoration Ecology (mainly America based journals). Both have rather low SI-indices. Both are aiming for a more international readership. I am sure other journals are in a similar situation. I suggest that the IMCG offers help to existing journals to change their focus a bit towards mires and select good mire papers to be published in existing SI-Journals. You could still operate an on-line editing facility that helps to prepare concept articles, publishes descriptive work on mires only to make it available for others, or show concept chapters for IMCG books on mires before they are officially published (as was done with the wise-use guide). The journal Wetlands has a broad base in the Society of Wetland Scientists and Restoration Ecology has an even larger organisation Society of Ecological Restoration to back up their journal. IMCG is “scientifically” rather small, and IPS is a dwarf compared to SER and SWS. So joining forces with established journals is a better way to improve mire science because there is hardly any risk of failure. Here we can offer assistance that is not a sacrifice. I would be more than willing to join such an operation, but don’t ask me to step in a risky enterprise that could potentially harm the careers of good mire scientists and in the end only offers IPS a scientific justification for peat ‘harvesting’ that it does not deserve.

Ab has indeed spotted some of the advantages of an on-line journal on mires and peat, namely:

- it will publish good mire science that is not appropriate for any other journal.

The rest is about ISI citation indices. Yes, the intention is to try to secure one of these for the new journal, and I’m disappointed that Ab sees the situation so negatively. I prefer to take a positive attitude. Some of the criteria set by ISI relate to editorial standards, which I intend to maintain (hopefully with the help of a good Editorial Board). The rest are concerned with achieving “critical mass” – essentially a healthy flow of articles indicating that the journal focuses on an emerging research topic that is not already covered within the ISI database. So is mire science ready to go for critical mass? Is our own assessment that, despite recent achievements in moving mires forward in the policy arena, the supporting research is just not good or active enough to stand up to this type of scrutiny? Or could this be another “underweight fight” where IMCG just might manage to come out on top?

In this respect, one advantage that we do have over other journals starting from scratch is the prospect of being able to operate without subscription charges. A journal that can be readily identified by web searches and then turns out to be freely available throughout the world might well be expected to have a head start in the citation stakes. A second advantage, worth many ISI points and not shared by the other peat-focused journals Telma and Suo, is the potential for IMCG and IPS members to form the core of an eminent, international authorship and Editorial Board, that is nonetheless capable of publishing all its material in English.

But let’s suppose that Ab is correct, and that however hard we try, the citation index will not materialise. Couldn’t the proposed journal be a worthwhile addition to IMCG’s activities in any case? Perhaps we have made a start to demonstrating this with Issue 12 of the International Peat Journal, which includes the small and diverse collection of publishable papers that came out of our symposium in Japan that would otherwise never have been published at all. With the internet journal infrastructure in place, we shall be ready to publish papers from our symposia in Tampere and South Africa as soon as they emerge from the refereeing process – there will be no need to wait for late papers to arrive, no need to seek funds for printing and distribution, no need for guesswork on print runs, and yet virtually no limitation on availability to a worldwide audience. Add the good mire papers that come from obscure countries and in bad English (which we can improve), those that Ab acknowledges would be rejected by other journals for scope reasons, and the internationally important mire science that now gets hidden away in small national journals (I have reviewed two such papers in the last couple of months), and I think we already have a powerful tool for IMCG’s information-disseminating objectives as well as a respectable outlet for mire scientists who need to build up basic portfolios of peer-reviewed publications. There are individual performance points to be had for publications in non-ISI journals (otherwise, how could these exist?), and perhaps with a few of Ab’s “sacrifices” we might not need to endure this low status forever.

I see no potential benefit from Ab’s suggestion that we should devote IMCG effort to raising the profiles of giant journals like Wetlands and Restoration Ecology. We can all publish in these individually if we wish. On the basis of a quick look at the recent contents of Wetlands (http://www.sws.org/wetlands/ journalsearch.html), I think that I would personally avoid this option because my mire papers would be just as insignificant amongst this US-biased collection of articles on all watery habitats as they are in the selection of higher-impact hydrological and ecological journals that have published my work already. Restoration Ecology is likely to be even more “dilute” and inaccessible for peatland researchers, since its scope includes terrestrial, marine and freshwater systems and it costs 233 euro per year for a personal subscription (or $ 107 when being a member of the Society of Ecological restoration).

By effectively “joining forces” instead with the International Peat Journal (IPJ), we shall have an opportunity to make a completely new publication in which every paper will be about mires, peatlands or peat; and at the same time to benefit from the modest but long reputation of IPJ. We shall be able to influence editorial policy much more than would be possible with one of the established wetlands journals. I have absolutely no worries about this so far because at the meeting I attended in Amsterdam last weekend, the IPS Executive Committee fully endorsed my view that we were aiming to produce a scientific journal and definitely not any kind of propaganda vehicle. This is not a “risky” venture for IMCG in financial terms, since IPS is prepared initially to contribute most of the real money. The risk that we shall be launching a completely empty web page at the beginning of 2005 also seems fairly remote because, even without publicity campaigns directed at IMCG and IPS members, six basically suitable research manuscripts are already being peer-reviewed in addition to the material that is being prepared from Tampere and South Africa. Thereafter, perhaps this venture will be just what we decide to make of it.Olivia Bragg09 November 2004

I am hesitating to support the initiative for a new journal, jointly published by IMCG and IPS, for the following reasons:

- The basic interests of the two organisations are different, they are even conflicting. IMCG is an organisation of people who are working for mire conservation. IPS is an organisation of people and /or companies that use mires for their economic benefit. The relationship between both organisations is similar to that of a trade union towards an organisation of employers.

- This does not mean that collaboration with IPS or its members should not take place at all. I think that in some cases it is useful to give advice or to do joint research (for example with respect to restoration or with respect to alternatives to peat in horticulture).

- IMCG is a conservation organisation. Its only aim is to conserve mires. To my opinion carrying out or funding mire research is not an aim of IMCG, except if this research is serving the conservation of mires.

- IMCG should try to convince IPS to give up any activities in mires that are not sustainable. I am afraid this relates to almost all of the activities of IPS members.

- Too close contacts with IPS – by establishing a joint platform like a journal – could erode the consciousness that there are basic conflicts of interests. And I fear that publishing a joint journal could spread the impression, that IMCG tolerates certain forms of mire exploitation, and that IPS might abuse the joint platform for their propaganda (for example by trying to certify peat in Europe as a renewable product).

As already explained in my response to Ab, I can lay to rest Ulrich’s fears that the editorial policy of the journal will be biased towards IPS propaganda – or IMCG propaganda for that matter. This will be a peer-reviewed research journal with an identity of its own, operating in an area where the interests of the two organisations overlap.

As far as the overlap is concerned, neither IPS nor IMCG claims to be a learned society or a research organisation; but both have a number of researchers amongst their respective memberships, and both need the results of research – for example to support IMCG’s Action Plan Objective A: to identify the global diversity of mire features, functions, and values. I am most grateful to Ulrich for identifying several new areas of focus for the journal. What better vehicle could there be for reporting the results of common IMCG/IPS research on peatland restoration and peat alternatives – and perhaps also on Sphagnum farming? The research that is needed to improve our understanding of how to conserve mires will also require a publication medium. And then there are the concepts of sustainability and renewability, whose applications in the context of peat and peatlands need urgent clarification through careful, objective, peer-reviewed research in order to give a firm foundation for practical applications of the wise use approach. Stop hesitating, Ulrich, and let’s get on with it!

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A new international peatland journal?