Large amounts of greenhouse gases escape from drained moors. Researchers are calling on the federal government to ensure that farmers water their soil again more quickly.
Almost all German moors have been drained in the past – mainly to be able to farm on them. More than half of the peat soils are used to keep dairy cows. But it is now clear that these drained areas pose a massive challenge for climate protection.
A lot of carbon is stored in the peat of peat soils. It comes into contact with oxygen as a result of the dewatering and thus enters the atmosphere as climate-damaging CO2. Around 53 million tons of greenhouse gases escape from drained moors in Germany every year. This corresponds to about seven percent of the total emissions – and is even significantly more than the entire domestic German air traffic causes.
Government relies on voluntariness
Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) wants to ensure more climate protection and emphasizes in ARD magazine Panoramathat the drained areas would have to get wetter again. According to Lemke, landscapes have been drained for decades; she now wants to reverse this process. She relies on voluntariness: she does not want to impose legal requirements on farmers.
Their moor protection strategy envisages reducing emissions from moor soils by five million tons a year by 2030 – i.e. by ten percent. Scientists are now criticizing their plans as insufficient and are calling for more consistent climate protection and faster action.
“We urgently need to formulate the goals in a more ambitious and long-term manner,” demands agricultural researcher Harald Grethe from the Humboldt University in Berlin in an interview panorama. In addition, it must be made clear that not everything will be voluntary, according to Grethe. After all, Germany has committed to becoming climate neutral by 2045.
rewetting might get harder
The Federal Environment Minister replies: “It is more important to me to get started now than to discuss goals for years and then fail to meet them.” According to Lemke, it is making four billion euros available for the “Action Program for Natural Climate Protection”. There has never been so much money for such projects.
But the moor researcher Bärbel Tiemeyer from the Thünen Institute – a federal research institution – warns that drained moors should be wet again as quickly as possible. Due to increasing global warming, it may become increasingly difficult to keep the moors wet in a few decades. At best, wet moors can even store carbon.
Protecting moorland is a huge challenge for agriculture. Because when soil is soaked up to the top edge, it is no longer possible to keep dairy cows on the wet areas or to drive a tractor on them. Therefore, the industry fears losses in the billions.
Moor plants as building materials?
In order for farmers to be able to earn money on wet soil in the future, new sustainable forms of farming must be created, according to the federal government’s moor protection strategy.
These include, for example, photovoltaic systems on rewetted areas or the cultivation of new crops. In pilot projects, for example, research is being carried out into how sustainable insulating panels for the construction industry could be produced from moor plants such as cattails. However, there is currently no market for such products.
Most peat soils in Germany are in Lower Saxony. Manfred Tannen from the local state farmers’ association is of the opinion that the entire dimension is still grossly underestimated. The farmer compares the upcoming change process with the phase-out of coal.
High costs of climate damage
In addition to farmers, water management and municipalities are also needed, according to a paper by the Greifswald Moor Center – a cooperation between the University of Greifswald and various moor protection institutions. In addition, approval procedures for waterlogging would have to be simplified and more staff would have to be qualified and employed. The facility calls for “drastically accelerating” the consistent protection of the moors.
In any case, agricultural researcher Grethe cannot imagine how the climate protection goals could be achieved without the moors. According to the scientist, this certainly means a significant transformation, but for the current high CO2 emissions, the costs for future climate damage are 7000 euros per hectare and year. If it is hydraulically possible, says Grethe, it is definitely worthwhile from an economic point of view to rewet areas.