Biotope and CO2 storage: why moors are so important for the climate

The moors of this world store more CO2 than all forests put together. That’s why it’s extremely important to protect them, say experts – and to rewet areas that have been drained. Paludifarming could be an important incentive.

Germany has set itself ambitious climate goals – but there is a risk of missing them. A means of quick and effective climate protection is right on the doorstep, so to speak: Moore. They are extremely efficient carbon reservoirs, as the biologist Ralf Reski from the University of Freiburg explains: “More moors around the world have stored about twice as much CO2 as all forests – including the Amazon and other rainforests – put together.”

These wetlands only cover about three percent of the earth’s land surface. Forests, on the other hand, account for around 30 percent. According to the Nature Conservation Union, one hectare of bog with a 15 centimeter thick layer of peat contains about as much carbon as a hundred-year-old forest of the same area.

Peat – raw material of agriculture

This enormous storage capacity comes from the various peat mosses that grow on the wet surfaces. These absorb the carbon dioxide from the air via photosynthesis and continue to grow, while the older plant parts lying below the water level die off. Over the years, the plant remains are turned into peat in the absence of oxygen – a coveted raw material in agriculture.

It can store large amounts of water and is therefore used, for example, in potting soil or as a nutrient substrate in plant breeding. Ornamental plants, lettuce, vegetables – almost every seedling in professional horticulture today still grows on peat soil.

Over 90 percent of the bogs are drained

However, these properties of the moors are a blessing and a curse at the same time. Because when they are drained, the CO2 bound in them and also nitrous oxide, which is over 300 times more harmful to the climate, escape back into the atmosphere – they then no longer protect the climate, but further heat up global warming. Germany is in a particularly bad position here: Of the originally around 1.5 million hectares of moorland in Germany – which corresponds to 4.2 percent of the country’s area – more than 90 percent are considered drained. They cause around 50 million tons of CO2 per year. This corresponds to almost seven percent of all emissions in Germany.

In most cases, the moors are drained in order to use them as forest or pasture, for example for cattle breeding – which puts an additional strain on the climate. In addition, dry moors are particularly threatened by fires. “Once peat landscapes catch fire, they can sometimes continue to smolder for years because the substance goes down,” says biologist Reski. You saw that in Siberia, but also in Lower Saxony in 2018, when the Bundeswehr set a peat landscape on fire during an exercise: For weeks it burned on around ten square kilometers.

“Restore 50,000 hectares annually”

Experts such as the moor researcher Hans Joosten from the University of Greifswald are therefore calling for the moors to be rewetted immediately. “Germany has to restore 50,000 hectares every year,” he said on Deutschlandfunk. Otherwise the climate goals of the Paris Agreement cannot be achieved. Both researchers therefore expressly welcome the action plan of the federal government. “This is an important project that has been neglected for too long,” says Reski. According to Joosten, however, it is important that the rate of waterlogging increases significantly. The government’s plans are too unambitious.

However, there is a big problem with the project: the majority of the moor areas in Germany are privately owned. “Therefore, there needs to be an incentive for farmers to turn their pastures back into bogs,” says Reski. Otherwise they would simply incur losses.

Paludifarming as a solution

The solution for the researchers is therefore: Paludifarming. The concept was developed at the University of Greifswald with the aim of reconciling the protection and use of moors. For example, certain types of moss that grow particularly quickly can be identified. These could be harvested after a few years and sold as white peat – which is used as a nutrient substrate in plant breeding. This could bring income to farmers and at the same time reduce the consumption of “real” peat – for which moors are still mined, especially abroad.

Another possibility would be, for example, to let water buffalo graze on these areas. Due to the special shape of their claws, they can also stand permanently on wet ground. Or reed could be grown, which is needed for thatched roofs in northern Germany in particular. There are many other ideas, but Reski admits that it will probably be a few years before ecologically and economically stable concepts for the use of moors become established.

Habitat for many species

But not only climate protection, but also biodiversity could benefit. A large number of plants and animals grow in the wetlands, which are not to be found in forests or meadows in numbers: dragonflies, rare plants such as Venus flytraps or sundews, frogs and other species of amphibians, and of course birds such as the short-eared owl and the curlew. That would help the climate and the environment – or as biologist Reski put it casually: “Moor has to be wet.”