Introduction

When – in 2006 – experts and advocacy groups for the first time raised the issue of GHG emissions from degraded peatlands at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), they met with negotiators, many of whom had never heard of ‘peat’ in the first place. Six years later, the UNFCCC allowed countries to comply with their reduction commitments by peatland rewetting and included peat soils in the REDD+ mechanism to reduce emissions from tropical deforestation. After years of neglect, peatlands have gained the attention that they deserve in the face of their enormous emissions and mitigation potential (Chapter 4).

This chapter discusses the potentials and complications of using climate change mitigation policies for stimulating and financing peatland restoration using the Climate Convention, in the context of voluntary carbon markets and through policies with indirect climate targets.

Many land use-oriented mitigation mechanisms have been developed with a forest bias, i.e. from the perspective of biomass carbon stocks. In using existing approaches to address peatlands, concepts and criteria thus have to be modified, complemented or newly developed to accommodate the specific peculiarities of peatlands – often after wearying awareness raising.

Market-based instruments are recognised as important elements of the international climate finance architecture. Since the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol (2005), about 3 billion Kyoto units, each of these representing 1 t CO2e, have been traded at least once for prices ranging from less than 1 EUR per unit to 20 EUR and more. The annual market value of national and subnational cap-and-trade systems (outside Kyoto) stands at USD 30 billion (World Bank 2014). These large sums, in combination with the huge carbon stocks in peatlands, have nurtured the idea that peatland restoration is an effective way of tapping into climate finance. However, reality is more complicated – as this chapter will show.

Beyond carbon trading proper, this chapter also addresses some future options for stimulating peatland restoration. Large peatland emissions occur both in industrialised and developing countries (Figure 15.1), and the ongoing negotiations within the post-2020 climate framework offer various opportunities to create peatland restoration incentives.

Setting the scene

In September 1997, the airports of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur shut down for several days. Fires from drained peatlands in Indonesia, over 1000 km away, were emitting vast clouds of smoke causing haze and poor visibility across large parts of South East Asia in the extremely dry El Niño year. Schools and businesses had to close, and people were admitted to hospitals with acute breathing problems. The amount of CO2 emitted from these fires was equivalent to 13–40% of annual global emissions from fossil fuels (Page et al. 2002). Economic losses due to the 1997–1998 wildfires exceeded several billion US dollars (ADB 1999).

In the hot August of 2010, people in Moscow were advised to stay at home, keep their windows closed and wear gauze masks to avoid inhaling ash particles when walking on the streets. Again the cause was fires, this time raging across nearly 2000 km2 of degraded peatlands in Russia. Carbon monoxide levels in the capital reached six times the maximum acceptable levels and death rates doubled due to heat and smog (Barriopedro et al. 2011).

These fires, resulting from peatland drainage and degradation that made them vulnerable to fire, dramatically highlight the huge liability that peatlands pose once degraded, especially in a changing climate. In sharp contrast, there is now wide recognition of the importance to human well-being of ecosystem services delivered by the peatland environment, not least the wildlife that underpins those ecosystem services. While peatlands cover not even 3% of the world’s surface, they hold two times more carbon than the entire global forest biomass pool, and represent more than 30% of the total global soil carbon store (see Chapter 4). As long-term carbon sinks, they provide crucial global climate-regulating services. If not safeguarded, however, the release of this carbon could further exacerbate climate change.

The range of peatland ecosystem services is far greater than simply their role in the carbon cycle. Pivotal peatland ecosystem services further include, for example, the provision of high-quality drinking water derived from peatland catchments. Peatlands also play a role in flood-water regulation, especially in lowland or coastal settings.

Introduction

The chapters of this book provide a compelling account of the crucial role of peatlands for human well-being and the role restoration can play in providing nature-based solutions to societal goals. Across the world, natural peatlands provide important ecosystem services, with a special role in climate regulation, water regulation, provision of cultural services, such as historical archives and recreation opportunities, and hosting important habitats for wildlife. In contrast, damaged peatlands on only 0.3% of the earth's land surface contribute disproportionally to global GHG emissions, producing probably up to 50% of the total global land bound and 5% of the total global annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Degraded peatlands therefore pose a high risk and, ultimately, a high cost to society.

At the heart of peatland degradation is the unsustainable exploitation of peatland resources, mainly to maximise provisioning services for agricultural and forestry produce (Chapters 2 and 9–14). There are still perverse incentives and economic drivers in place fostering short-term profits (Chapters 2, 15 and 19), while neglecting consequences for global natural capital and sustainable livelihoods. The speed of degradation is alarming, especially in the tropics. Natural peatland habitats in Indonesia have shrunk to just 32% of the original peatland area, with most of those losses occurring in the last two decades as peatlands are drained and logged and converted to oil palm or pulpwood plantations. These plantations often cannot be sustained for more than one or a few production cycles, because subsidence eventually makes drainage of the low-lying peat soils impossible (Chapter 14). In temperate Europe, the majority of the peatlands has already been degraded by land use and land-use change over the past 150 years (Chapters 2, 10, 12). In Canada, recent technological advances and a desire for energy independence have meant that tar sand extraction will destroy peatlands to a significant extent. Also in Europe some of the remaining peatlands remain under current threat from the energy industry.

Introduction

All over the world, high-altitude peatlands are the product of co-evolution between nature and pastoral communities. Over thousands of years, people, looking for subsistence and resources, have changed the character of fragile mountain landscapes and their peatlands through deforestation and livestock grazing (Trimble and Mendel 1995). Increasing population pressure, the quest for mineral resources and perverse policies have in recent times intensified these changes.

The character of high-altitude peatlands can be paraphrased as ‘cold and steep and wet and sheep’. The high altitude induces colder and more humid conditions and – upwind of the mountain – more precipitation. Excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation at high altitudes requires special adaptation of the biota, whereas the climatic island character explains the disjunct distribution of species and the high degree of endemism (Körner 2003, 2008; Spehn et al. 2010). The colder climate also discourages arable agriculture so that pastoralism – with a wide variety of livestock – is the principal form of subsistence. High rainfall and relatively steep slopes generate surface runoff, exposing the landscape and the sensitive peatlands to strong erosive forces (Evans and Warburton 2007).

The world's largest concentration of high-altitude peatlands is found in the northeastern part of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (China). There, in the provinces of Sichuan and Gansu right in the heart of China (Figure 13.1), the Ruoergai (or Zoige) Plateau is located at an altitude of about 3500 m a.s.l. In contrast to the drier western and central parts of Tibet, the Ruoergai Plateau, a plain glacial landscape with low mountain ranges of some hundred metres in height, has a humid climate with long winters and short summers (Lehmkuhl and Liu 1994) which have facilitated the development of 474 000 ha of peatlands (Schumann, Thevs and Joosten 2008).

In this chapter, we explore the history and drivers of peatland degradation on the Ruoergai Plateau, the loss of important ecosystem services and the impact of such loss on livelihoods. We discuss how integrated projects may facilitate the restoration of ecosystem services and biodiversity while contributing to poverty alleviation. Case studies present the various approaches and illustrate how participatory community involvement is integral to the successful implementation of peatland conservation and restoration programmes.

Introduction

More than 80% of the globe's 4 million km2 peatland area is still in a largely natural state. In contrast, hardly any mire has survived in regions with a large population pressure. Degraded peatlands, i.e. 0.3% of the global land area, are responsible for a disproportionate 5% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions (Joosten 2009c). For such a small area of the globe to generate such substantial emissions suggests that peatlands have some remarkable qualities.

This chapter describes the main characteristics of peatlands, provides an overview of peatland distribution across the globe, presents trends in peatland use, describes peatland degradation and its root causes in various parts of the world, and discusses consequent restoration potentials and necessities.

Peatland characteristics and ecosystem services

Introduction

In most natural ecosystems the production of plant material is counterbalanced by its decomposition through the actions of bacteria and fungi. However, in wetlands where the water table is stable near the surface, the dead plant remains do not fully decay but partly accumulate as peat. Such wetland is called a mire, whereas an area with peat is called a peatland (see Box 2.1; Figure 2.1; Joosten and Clarke 2002). The rate of peat accumulation (‘peat growth’) in mires is generally in the order of magnitude of 1 mm per year. Where accumulation has continued for thousands of years, the land may thus be covered with peat layers that are many metres thick (Charman 2002).

Peat formation

The accumulation of peat requires an imbalance in the production and decay of dead organic (plant) material. The most important reason for peat accumulation is retarded decay due to water saturation (Clymo 1983). The limited diffusion rate of gases in water leads to a low availability of oxygen, whereas the large heat capacity of water and the large energy demand for vaporisation induce lower than ambient temperatures (Denny 1993; Ball 2000). The resulting anaerobic and relatively cold conditions inhibit the activities of decomposing organisms (Moore 1993; Freeman et al. 2001). An important role is played by the recalcitrance of the produced plant material, with some species, organs or substances decaying more easily than others. The production of acids, humic substances and phenolic inhibitors during initial decay also contributes to limiting decomposition.

Introduction

The origin of mainstream Western agriculture lies in the ‘fertile crescent’ of the Middle East and, in this cradle of arable farming, dryland plants were domesticated that currently constitute some of our major cereal, legume and fibre crops. This ‘semi-desert’ agriculture installed the idea that productive land must be dry, a paradigm that ever since has been applied also to wet, organic soils. We deeply drain peatland to grow arid maize Zea mays in Germany, strongly water-demanding sugar cane Saccharum spp. in Florida and the desert species Aloe vera in Indonesia. Practices like this have made agriculture the main driver of global peatland loss (Joosten and Clarke 2002, Chapter 2) and drained peatlands are thus primarily found in regions that are climatically favourable for agriculture, i.e. in the temperate zone and the (sub)tropics (Chapter 2).

Peatland drainage causes inherent peatland degradation, a substantial financial and environmental burden and eventually the loss of the productive value of the peat soil (Joosten, Tapio-Biström and Tol 2012). These problems are increasingly being recognised: worldwide several thousands of square kilometres of drained agricultural peatlands have been rewetted in recent years for climate change mitigation, for biodiversity, or simply because maintaining drainage infrastructure had become too expensive. Rewetting has indeed re-established major regulating and cultural services of wet peatlands, including carbon storage, flood control, water purification, archive function and biodiversity (Theuerkauf et al. 2006; Limpens et al. 2008; Trepel 2010; Tanneberger and Wichtmann 2011; Joosten et al. 2015a; Chapter 6). The provisioning services of these formerly productive lands, however, were mostly lost as the rewetted areas were generally earmarked for nature conservation with the condition that they would no longer be used agriculturally.

On the other hand, the quest for productive land is rapidly growing worldwide. This demand will continue to increase, because of the inevitable growth of human population and the justified demands for food security and more welfare. The demand will also grow, because biomass from cultivated land will increasingly have to replace the resources that until now were obtained from the wilderness (wood, non-timber forest products, bushmeat) and the bedrock (coal, oil, gas, minerals). Both the persistent use of drained peatlands for agriculture and the conversion of agriculturally used peatlands to unused wetlands imply that we are losing productive land at a time when we need it most.

Introduction

Peatlands are the world's most important terrestrial ecosystems with respect to carbon (C) storage, and act as a source and sink for GHGs. In this chapter we outline the importance of peatlands in climate regulation and we describe the effects of drainage and restoration.

Peatlands and climate regulation

Description, status and trends

Peatlands are the largest terrestrial store of organic carbon

Peatland ecosystems (including peat and vegetation) contain much more organic carbon than other terrestrial ecosystems. In the (sub)polar zone, peatlands contain on average 3.5 times more carbon per hectare than ecosystems on mineral soil; in the boreal zone seven times more carbon; and in the humid tropics as much as 10 times more carbon (Joosten and Couwenberg 2008). While covering only 3% of the world's land area, peatlands contain 450 Gt of carbon in their peat (Joosten 2009c; Page, Rieley and Banks 2011a). Peatlands are the largest long-term carbon store in the terrestrial biosphere and among the Earth's most important stores.

The huge carbon stock of peatland ecosystems is attributable to the often thick layers of peat. Peat is a highly concentrated stockpile of carbon because it consists by definition of more than 30% (dry mass) of dead organic material that contains 48–63% of carbon. On average, the peatlands of the world hold a carbon pool in their peat of 1125 t C ha-1 (450 Gt/400 × 106 ha), which is the largest carbon density of any terrestrial ecosystem. The ecosystem with the second most carbon per hectare is the giant conifer forest in the Pacific West of North America, which, before human disturbance, reached only half the carbon density of the average peatland (Joosten and Couwenberg 2008).

Estimates of soil C stock to 1 m depth range between 1400 and 1600 Gt C (Smith 2004). Further C is stored deeper: 491 Gt C between 1–2 m depth, and 351 Gt C at 2–3 m depth (Jobbágy and Jackson 2000). The atmosphere (in 1990) contained 750 Gt C, mainly as CO2 and CH4 (Houghton, Jenkins and Ephraums 1990). The global terrestrial plant biomass carbon stock is estimated to be 654 Gt (IPCC 2001) with total global forest biomass holding 335–365 Gt of carbon (Shvidenko et al. 2005).

Introduction

Fifty years later this nearly untouched world in northwest Borneo no longer exists. Of Sarawak's original 1.4 million hectares of peat swamp forest, 80% is already lost. Most of the peat swamp forest has been drained and cleared to make way for plantations of African oil palm Elaeis guineensis to boost the production of highly valued palm oil (Wetlands International 2010; Miettinen et al. 2012a). This situation exemplifies the overall trend of peat swamp destruction and conversion in South East Asia. Of the original 15.5 million hectares of South East Asian peat swamp forests, less than 5 million hectares (32%) remains today, mostly in some state of degradation. Commercial and illegal logging and fire have affected nearly all remaining peat forests in western Indonesia and Malaysia, including conservation areas. There are now no untouched peat swamp forests and not one hydrologically intact peat dome remaining in Malaysia, Kalimantan and Sumatra (e.g. Silvius and Giesen 1996; Miettinen and Liew 2010; Wetlands International 2010). If current rates of deforestation continue, this region will lose its last peat swamp forests by 2030 (Miettinen et al. 2012b). The possible exception is the small state of Brunei, where most peat swamps are well protected.

In Europe, the region with proportionally the greatest peatland losses worldwide, most peatland degradation took place over the past four centuries and halted in the 1980s (Joosten 2009b). In contrast, South East Asian peatland destruction is a very recent phenomenon that largely started in the 1970s and has dramatically accelerated over the last 20 years.