Peatlands and policy

Policy frameworks tend to treat peatlands either as forests or marshes, and often fail to recognize the special eco-hydrological characteristics of peatlands which are so important for their sustainable management. Policy makers and sectoral agencies (e.g. forestry, agriculture, water resources agencies) often do not specially recognise peatlands as a separate landform or ecosystem type needing special consideration. Peatlands are generally classified by sectoral agencies as grasslands, forests or wetlands. As a result the special management issues and requirements of peatlands as described in the sections above are not recognised. Even the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands classifies peatlands as either marshes or forested wetlands and does not provide peatlands with a class of their own. There are also few countries that have national or local peatland policies or strategies which specifically include separate management prescriptions for peatlands.

There are around 40 countries with National Wetlands Policies, of which only some are specifically mention peatlands. Peatlands are often not mentioned or not recognized as a priority for biodiversity conservation in many national Biodiversity Conservation Strategies either. The limited prioritisation of peatland conservation in the overall context of biodiversity conservation may be partly due to their relatively low species biodiversity in some regions of the world. This may be combined with a lack of awareness of their high degree of biological diversity at habitat level and the relative high occurrence of characteristic species and endemics. Sometimes it may even be linked to a plain lack of awareness of the existence of peatlands and their special management needs.

Addressing root causes and enhancing Implementation Mechanisms

In developing countries and countries in transition where poverty may be a root cause of unsustainable peatland resource exploitation, development may be the only way to create opportunities for peatland conservation. On the other hand, where development of peatlands coincides with the need for drainage and mining, it will generally be unsustainable and non-conducive to the conservation of the peatland carbon stores and biodiversity. Without appropriate economic alternatives and incentives it may often be impossible to maintain and manage conservation areas or invest in rehabilitation of degraded peatlands. Poor people must have a livelihood before being able to refrain from over-exploitation of natural resources. In poverty-stricken regions, governments argue that they often need to generate sufficient economic growth – even by unsustainable means - before being in a position to take environment into consideration. Therefore, incentives for short-term unsustainable development, including for instance, logging and land conversion, remain high. Development is therefore central to peat swamp forest conservation and the sustainable management and rehabilitation of degraded peatlands. Considering the declining incomes from agriculture and forestry on peatlands, there is a pressing need to enhance alternative income opportunities for local rural populations. In the meantime it is important to ensure that their land and resources are no longer degraded, and where agriculture and plantation forestry is practiced on peat it, that it is optimised in terms of sustainability. Without sufficient revenues from the land, poor people may be forced to go for the cheapest but not necessarily the most sustainable land-use management options. For example, this could include the use of fire for land clearance.

New emerging innovative options

		Conservation and rehabilitation of peatlands thus provide a major opportunity to reduce current global greenhouse gas emissions). The huge, but only recently recognised, CO2 emissions from tropical peatland deforestation and degradation, represents one of the single largest but also most concentrated sources of greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use/agriculture sector. Whereas tropical deforestation in general covers hundreds of millions of ha worldwide and generates annual emissions of 1-2 billion tonnes of CO2, the degradation of peat swamp forests which is mainly confined to 12 million ha of degraded peat swamps in Southeast Asia, leads to a larger total emission. Hence this should be considered as a global priory for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (Silvius 2006, Hooijer et al. 2006. Significant emission reductions can also be achieved through peatland conservation and restoration in other parts of the world such as In China, Russia and eastern Europe where large peatlands have been degraded through agriculture and other activities. Linkages to poverty issues and biodiversity loss ties it to two other globally recognised priorities. Some newly-emerging possibilities for conserving peatlands, particularly for their carbon storage function, are payments for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), as currently being developed by Parties to the UNFCCC.

The World Bank and other institutions are exploring options to establish REDD funding mechanisms to support pilot schemes, including the option of carbon fund payments to national and local governments which need to be based on a national baseline monitoring, and the option for payments to private and community stakeholders and beneficiaries for their “environmental services”. As peatlands cut across all forest management, conservation and land use (production, industrial and agricultural) types, maintaining the welfare of traditional local communities in peatlands is a major concern.

Parallel to this are numerous private sector initiatives. This indicates a strong interest in investment in avoiding emissions through peatland rehabilitation and reforestation as a means to compensate for industrial emissions elsewhere. Some investors see opportunities for trade in “Carbon futures”. These interests could well provide the local people in peatlands with opportunities to develop a new community-based public service. According to Butler (2007) preserving tropical forest and peat swamp that would otherwise be converted and collecting the resulting recurrent revenue provided by the carbon offset market may be more lucrative for landowners in some areas than conversion to palm oil. With a carbon emission reduction price range of US$14-US$22/tonne, similar level profits may be derived over a period of 25 years.

The option for local communities to provide services to the emerging carbon market in terms of peat swamp forest conservation and restoration represents a major opportunity for linking climate change mitigation to poverty reduction. It also enhances options for other types of strategies or combinations, particularly relevant to countries with no substantial agricultural subsidies. These include for instance, the development of innovative financial instruments such as Bio-rights (www.bio-rights.org) (Silvius et al. 2002).

Evidence has been accumulating that in many cases, natural peatland habitats generate marked economic benefits, which exceed those obtained from habitat conversion. Economic costs associated with damage to ecosystem services can be substantial. For example, the damage of the 1997 Borneo fires to timber, tourism, transport, agriculture, and other benefits derived from or linked to the forests, is estimated at $4.5 billion - in addition to the actual cost of fighting the fires (Tacconi 2003). Significant investments are often needed to restore or maintain non-marketed ecosystem services, such as the costs of flood prevention in down-stream areas.

The need for local policy embedding of innovative mechanisms

There is an urgent need to create an enabling policy environment for innovative mechanisms such as the emerging market in Verified Emission Reductions from peatlands and forests. In order to provide the necessary basis for long-term commitments from all stakeholders and management frameworks that will give carbon buyers sufficient guarantees that their investments – represented by the preserved and rehabilitated sub- and above-soil carbon store – are safe, new policy environments are needed. This will require more than the usual five-year plans, and commitments must be binding well beyond the legislative periods of current elected authorities.

Also, for carbon projects that are based on business deals at the local – community – level, such long-term commitments are needed. For instance, investment in reforestation of community-owned buffer zones adjacent to protected areas needs the development of contracts that are binding to future as well as present generations. This poses considerable new challenges, as it is impossible to predict the incentives or disincentives that may arise in the future and tip the balance leading to a change in priorities of local stakeholders.

Harmful subsidies, policies and taxes

Peatlands have been negatively impacted by a wide array of perverse and harmful incentives in the form of policies and subsidies. In many countries peatland drainage is still encouraged under various kinds of policies, subsidies and tax breaks. There are ample examples in Western Europe where high mountain peatlands were significantly affected by former EU subsidies for sheep (encouraging more sheep to be held then the carrying capacity of the peatlands) and national subsidies and tax breaks for afforestation which have encouraged draining and planning of peatlands with monospecicific plantations. Sometimes land tenure is linked to productive use of peatlands, providing a disincentive to conservation and restoration. In Indonesia, for instance, there are local policies that require clearance of land every three years, without which the land tenure can be lost. This creates an incentive for burning as it is the cheapest option for land clearance.

In recent years, one of the most important negative impacts on peatlands globally have come from policy incentives and subsidies for biofuel production – which were originally designed to enhance environmental protection.

Synergy between conventions to develop integrated policy frameworks

Peatlands are a habitat where current global priorities in climate change mitigation, combating land degradation, stopping the loss of biodiversity and reducing poverty come together. This Assessment has indicated in various ways the disproportionate relevance of peatlands in relation to climate change mitigation, combating land degradation, biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction, and as such the need to consider peatlands within the context of the major global policy platforms, including the UNFCCC, UNCCD, World Water Forum, CBD, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Commission on Sustainable Development. The synergy between the conventions and policy platforms in this regard calls for enhanced coordination and cooperation. The donor community is increasingly recognising the need for integration of these agendas, but current global policy processes fall short of sharing lessons-learned and best practices regarding the development of inter-sectoral approaches to the conservation and wise use of peatlands world-wide. The figure below illustrated that integrated Peatland management can simultaneously address a variety of problems and generate multiple benefits.

Conclusion

The current management of peatlands is generally not sustainable and has major negative impacts on biodiversity and the climate. A wise use approach is needed to integrate protection and sustainable use to safeguard the peatland benefits from increasing pressure from people and the changing climate. Strict protection of intact peatlands is critical for the conservation of biodiversity and will maintain their carbon storage and sequestration capacity and other associated ecosystem functions. Relatively simple changes in peatland management (such as better water management and fire control in drained peatlands) can both improve the sustainability of land use and limit negative impacts on biodiversity and climate.

Restoration of peatlands can be a cost-effective way to generate immediate benefits for biodiversity and climate change by reducing peatland subsidence, oxidation and fires.