Moors have a bad reputation: Poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff found them eerie, Emily Brontë depicts them in her novel “Wuthering Heights” as places haunted by longing ghosts. In Hesse, rumors circulate about a village that was swallowed by the moor as divine punishment along with its inhabitants.
In truth, it is the other way around: for centuries people have drained the moor. Or more precisely: they have drained it. According to the German Nature Conservation Association (NABU), 95 percent of Germany’s moors have been drained for land and forest use. And this has serious consequences for climate and the environment. Originally moors covered about 1.5 million hectares—roughly 4 percent of the German landscape, about the size of Schleswig-Holstein. Today only two percent remain intact.
Yet the moorlands are now said to be facing a “real turnaround”: announced by Federal Environment Minister Carsten Schneider (SPD) on Friday morning. He introduced a new funding program aimed at re-wetting 90,000 hectares of agriculturally used moorland in the coming years. The project is set to begin with several flagship projects on a total area of 5,000 hectares.
The program is the largest undertaking of the Natural Climate Protection Action Programme, which Schneider’s predecessor Steffi Lemke (Greens) had launched in the traffic-light coalition. 1.75 billion euros from the Climate and Transformation Fund are allocated for it.
Agriculture Can Also Benefit From Moors
The challenge: Despite re-wetting, the areas must remain economically usable for agriculture. The new funding program aims to encourage farmers to switch to the so-called wet agriculture or paludiculture (from Latin Palus, swamp). A key incentive: drained moor soils are not sustainable for conventional farming in the long term. Especially with climate change, water shortages can occur in affected regions.
To create alternatives, the program helps farmers in planning and implementing re-wetting. Losses in land ownership and use can be compensated. Above all, the aim was to make paludiculture a long-term economically viable alternative that yields income, Schneider said.
To this end, the program supports the creation of new value chains and products derived from paludiculture. “We are now tapping into something that historically existed,” said Franziska Tanneberger, head of the Greifswald Moor Center and environmental prize winner, to . The fact that Germany long enjoyed a successful use of wet moors can be seen, for example, in the traditional thatched roofs of northern Germany. Not only roofs can be covered with paludiculture products: from grasses and moor plants one can produce animal feed, as well as insulation or packaging materials. Moist moor meadows can be used as pastures for water buffalo.
Wet Moors Reduce Emissions
The advantage of wet, healthy moors goes far beyond sustainable agriculture: although they now account for only about 3 percent of the land surface worldwide, they hold roughly 30 percent of the carbon stored in land in check. If they are drained, the greenhouse gases are released.
Fully 7 percent of Germany’s total emissions originate from drained moors. That amounts to about 50 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year. The ministry hopes to massively reduce these emissions with the new program. Nathalie Niederdrenk, an advisor for soil and peat protection at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, assumes that through re-wetting, depending on the water level, up to 25 tonnes of greenhouse gases per hectare could be saved annually.
“Through re-wetting, emissions can be reduced very quickly. CO₂ emissions drop completely when a moor soil is water-saturated,” said Franziska Tanneberger. In the best case, revived moors could even become natural carbon sinks that continue to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
The expert also notes that the management of wet moors under the right conditions can have additional positive effects. Regular mowing, for example, can lead to greater biodiversity due to increased light exposure.
How could such widespread re-wetting be implemented logistically? “In re-wetting, essentially the active drainage ends,” explains Tanneberger. The moors lie where there is water surplus, for example along the coasts, in river valleys, or on slopes. “Drainage is a permanent energy expenditure. Re-wetting is not.”
Paludiculture Farmers: The Funding Program Is a “Good Driving Force”
According to Schneider, the funding program is the result of an open dialogue with all participants. He has invested a lot of time and effort to win over all stakeholders, including the German Farmers Association (DBV) and the Ministry of Agriculture for the program. When presenting the program to press representatives, he sent “best regards” to the room from Agriculture Minister Alois Rainer (CSU).
“A re-wetting of moors can only be successful if it is voluntary and in agreement with farmers and landowners and the enterprises have economic prospects with market-based approaches for the long-term use of the land beyond the targeted funding period to 2030,” commented Stefanie Sabet, Secretary General of the German Farmers Association, when asked by about the new funding program.
The voluntary nature is guaranteed by the new funding program. How economically profitable paludiculture can actually be will only become clear in the coming years. Farmer Sebastian Petri from the Moorhofer Grassland Farm in Brandenburg expressed a positive stance toward the program at the press conference. His operation has relied on paludiculture for years, and with success. The program provides farmers with important incentives and security. It is “a good driving force” to advance the transformation in agriculture and peatland protection.
