Restoration of bogs – Bavaria

It is by no means idyllic here, north-east of Augsburg behind the urban area: A fence separates a campsite, behind the trucks rush along the state road. And yet the Lechhausener Moos, on which the conservationists are now standing, will be an important patch of land in Bavaria this year in terms of climate protection and biodiversity. In a cross-district project, they want to determine how the so-called low moorland east of the Lech can be upgraded again – which will also allow conclusions to be drawn for all 220,000 hectares of moorland in Bavaria.

So the landscape ecologist Richard Engelschall sticks a metal rod deep into the ground, twists it further and further in and uses it to pull out different layers of soil: from the upper layer, brownish, washed-in farmland. Then, already black, mineralized, compacted peat soil. “If you went deeper, you wouldn’t see any further decomposing, brownish plant bog soil that has built up over thousands of years,” says Ernst Haile, chairman of the Aichach-Friedberg district group of the Bund Naturschutz (BN).

Peat soils are complex ecosystems, they are – what many are not aware of – extremely important carbon stores, much more important than the vegetation above the ground. However, the peat soils in Bavaria have also been badly affected. 95 percent of all Bavarian bogs are no longer in the so-called underwater saturation, as BN regional officer for Swabia, Thomas Frey, puts it. Organic material is no longer under water there, so it reacts with oxygen, decomposes – and the carbon escapes.

“The protection of fens is crucial for climate protection”

Six percent – that’s five million tons – of Bavaria’s CO₂ equivalent emissions come from broken moors. Less from the high moors in the foothills of the Alps, which mainly get their moisture from rainwater. But mainly from the so-called Anmooren, i.e. mineral soils with a high proportion of organic matter, and the Niedermooren, which exist particularly along the large rivers such as the Isar, Danube or Lech and have been practically drained and destroyed, especially for agriculture. “The protection of fens is crucial for climate protection,” says Frey. The Bund Naturschutz demands that peat soils, in cooperation with farmers, should be used again in such a way that they accumulate carbon – and in this way also remain home to rare animal species.

This is easy to observe in the 3000 square meter Lechhausener Moos, which stretches along the Lech. Lapwings and skylarks still occasionally breed here, there are also partridges, quails and tree frogs, and even the rare blue-throated dragonfly, a species of dragonfly – although only one specimen was sighted last year. The experts are sometimes amazed at the number of rare species that still exist in the fen, despite decades of destruction. In the past, however, says Lech expert Eberhard Pfeuffer, the black grouse were so numerous here that nobody would have bothered to count them. “There were still perches, it was a dream world until the Lech was canalised.” Johannes Enzler, chairman of the BN district group in Augsburg, says: “If we don’t start massively now, then it will be over.”

The project with the official title “Potential assessment for the preservation and improvement of the functions of the Lechhausen Moor” is funded by the Bavarian nature conservation fund. It should now identify the CO₂ storage potential in the moor. A hydrological report is intended to clarify the status of the groundwater. And finally, the experts want to identify protective measures for the animals. All of this should flow into a catalog of measures on how the fen can be redesigned and brought back into shape.

A crucial point will be to transform agricultural use. Plants are grown on the arable land that cannot tolerate the wet at all and therefore have to be heavily fertilized and sprayed, which is why not only the outgassing of the moor, but also the cultivation produces CO₂, methane and nitrous oxide in particular. If the management method were to be changed and the groundwater level raised to at least ten centimeters below the turf, says conservationist Haile, the climate-damaging emissions would be reduced by around 80 percent. Raising the groundwater, reducing drainage, building up humus, all of these would be ways of improving the condition of the bog.

But when farming is changed, says Haile, farmers have to be offered prospects, for example through so-called paludiculture – i.e. through the cultivation of plant species that tolerate high water levels well and are in demand by industry, for example as insulating material. “If you leave it as it is, peat degradation is about one centimeter per year,” says Haile. “A peat bog, on the other hand, succeeds at a rate of about one millimeter per year.”

The Federation of Nature Conservation demands more speed

As far as the entire Bavarian moor landscape is concerned, according to the Federal Nature Conservation Agency, politicians have now realized that moor protection is not just nature conservation, but also climate protection – and has a positive effect on biodiversity. With around 800 hectares, around a third of BN’s own areas in Bavaria are moorland, where nature conservationists are renaturing and raising the water level. The Bund Naturschutz criticizes that the programs and, above all, the speed with which the goals of the Bavarian state government are being implemented are not sufficient to achieve climate neutrality by 2035. Subsidies that are harmful to moors should be discontinued and moor protection should be promoted even more in the Bavarian funding programs.

However, it is also important to the conservationists to raise awareness of the importance of moors, for example directly in the Lechhausen moor. A few meters further, in the next town of Mühlhausen, they are planning a bypass. The route would lead directly through the moor, directly through the breeding grounds of rare birds. Raising the groundwater would certainly no longer be of any use to the bog and the lapwing at this point.