Mystical, eerie.
Sometimes even menacing. Bogs are seen as dark places. They are often the setting for
murder mysteries or spooky tales. Humans have been
decimating bogs for centuries with perilous consequences. We absolutely turn the ecosystems from
sinks of carbon to sources of carbon. And so that's going to really
exacerbate potentially climate change. The unique ecosystems
store vast amounts of carbon but their potential has been
overlooked for quite some time. Peatlands are like
the lungs of the world. We could say that
these are webs of life. And these ‘webs of life’
are under threat. But new methods could save the world’s
peatlands - as well as our climate. Strips of green in rural Germany. Something is growing here
that could help rescue bogs. Most of Germany’s wetlands have
been drained and are unrecognizable... And Greta Gaudig and Matthias Krebs
want to show what’s been lost and how to get it back. That was quicker
than I thought. They regularly take
samples with the probe. Lower down it looks good. But everything above,
where it’s dry, is lost. When a peat bog is drained
it begins to decompose. You can see that in the sample. In the upper layer, where it’s so
dark, there’s lots of decomposition. This decomposition
worries the ecologist. Peat is made up of dead plants which sunk into shallow,
slightly acidic water. This oxygen-poor environment
doesn’t allow the debris to decompose and the carbon stays put. But draining exposes
the layers to oxygen, which starts decomposition
and binds it to the element. It is then released
as carbon dioxide. Peatlands are like polymaths:
they can do so much. Their biodiversity
alone is very special, and they are
major carbon sinks. That’s why it’s so important
that we protect peatlands. And not just living ones,
but also the ones we drained. Greta Gaudig has been fighting
for peatlands for twenty years. She focuses on former bogs,
which she not only studies but also works to
restore through rewetting. But it can only work if the
farmers who live off the land agree. Germany has around 1.8
million hectares of peatland, an area roughly the size of Saxony. 98 percent has already been drained,
mostly to make way for agriculture. Draining is a climate disaster because it makeses carbon
sources out of ancient carbon sinks. Peatlands now contribute about seven
percent of Germany’s CO2 emissions. By comparison, national air
traffic contributes just 0.15 percent, almost 50 times less. Greta Gaudig wants to
turn these climate killers back into climate saviors -
together with local farmers. A difficult, and muddy, task. She and her team are researching how
crops could be produced on wetlands for the Greisfswald Mire Centre. -Did you find it, Keno?
-Yes. 262. They find sphagnum moss
at this measuring station. Moss may seem underwhelming but these starry green plants
could help save the planet, because they’re incredibly useful
for what she calls paludiculture. That comes from Palus, which
is Latin for swamp or marsh, so agriculture on wet
bog lands or swamps. Greta Gaudig studied biology and was intrigued by these
mosses even as a student. Their usefulness was
little known at the time. She is currently working on an
instruction manual for paludiculture. I don’t want to do science
that just ends up in a drawer. I want it to be used - and this is
a whole new kind of agriculture. A system that could
revolutionize how we grow plants. Peat is now used everywhere: in soil
for home gardening or potted plants, by professional garden centers
and for commercial vegetable fields. But our hunger for peat
is hurting our wetlands. She wants to replace the peat
used in plant soil with bog moss. But growing moss first needs
to become more efficient. The team is testing machines
for maintaining moss fields. It’s precise work because they
only want to remove the upper layer and preserve the
precious bog below. This sample is for the lab. Heavy! This paludiculture system was
born at the Greifswald Mire Centre, which is where Greta Gaudig
examines her favorite plant. This is the peat moss biomass. We want to dry it
first and then weigh it so that we know how
much a farmer could harvest. Sphagnum mosses have enormous
potential for use in plant soil. Bog mosses benefit
the climate twice. First, they can replace
peat in horticulture, a renewable material
replacing a fossil fuel. That’s the first one. And secondly, peatlands would
be rewetted to cultivate the mosses, which would mean
that the high emissions that currently come from
drained peatlands would stop. The lab tests go well,
as do the first field trials. She’s confident that they can
develop a system for mass production. This is where ecological economist
Sabine Wichmann comes in. Her job at Germany’s most important
peatland research center is to ensure that projects have a
solid economic foundation. New areas will be
needed to grow bog moss, and we’re talking about
hundreds or thousands of hectares. We’ll need to convince
farmers and land-owners. Plus, the investment costs are high. Which is why the next hurdle for
the researchers is finding buyers. Perhaps they can
convince a garden centre... Further North, Finland has
Europe’s most extensive peatlands. They’re home to rare
animal and plant species. But these biotopes also died
as they were strip-mined for fuel or drained to make
room for forest plantations. Tero Mustonen has been
working to mitigate the damage. He’s a climate
scientist and activist. And, as a globally
respected scholar, he also contributed to the
UN Climate Change report. He has an especially strong bond with
one peatland in his native Finland. It almost feels like
Linnunsuo is kind of a person. You see some kind
of a presence here. For example, of this wood
piece that I'm now looking at may potentially be
2,000 to 3,000 years old. I often want to think that
peatlands are the memory of Finland. Without Mustonen and his
non-profit “Snowchange,” Linnunsuo wouldn’t
exist as it does today. It’s one of around 80
areas across the country that have been
successfully rewilded. And it’s near the 46-year-old’s
home village, Selkie. It has taught us everything
we have needed to learn in order to make this
a national program. From that we started to
learn and test and innovate. How can we restore a
large peatland system? A huge project of 110 hectares. Peat had been harvested
here as fuel for decades. The mining decimated the
landscape and poisoned the rivers. It was severely impacted
by human decisions for economic gain
and energy production that had disastrous results. There was a fish death event and
of course these impacts to climate because they are active carbon sources
even after the mining has stopped. Tero Mustonen’s home village also
felt the effects, 10 km downstream. Einari Martikainen is a fisherman
and Mustonen’s long-time friend. Just use one piece of wood. I’ll add more later.
Stop being so skeptical. The 69-year-old
could only watch as peat mining nearly destroyed
the nature and his livelihood. I saw fish lying dead along the shore
or floating lifelessly in the water. It was terrible.
I was in total shock. Martikainen and the
entire village fought back. They sued the energy company with the help of Tero Mustonen's
environmental non-profit - and won. The first time in Finnish history that locals successfully
halted peat mining. Snowchange purchased
Linnunsuo to be re-wilded. It is vital to listen
and understand the best part of what Einari
and others are telling us. Because they contain potentially
one element which is missing: wisdom. What is the right thing to do? We have ample choices of
different pathways of responding. But who is having the compass
and map on the right choice. Linnunsuo is a model for
damaged peat areas worldwide. And the project has
been carefully documented to ensure it stays that way. In the afternoon Paul can build
a dam on this side from timber. Environmentalist Alicia
Jarma Buscail from Spain is measuring greenhouse
gases emitted by the soil. Nature is slowly but surely
reclaiming the area after decades of exploitation. The measurements show
the fight has been worth it. The drained peatland emitted
400 tonnes of CO2 annually but the restored
ecosystem now pulls as much as 100 tonnes of
CO2 a year from the atmosphere. Just a few kilometers away, the re-wilding process
includes killing nature. Thousands of pines and
spruces need to be cut down to help return the
wetland to health. That may seem
counter-productive but peatlands are actually far
better at storing carbon than trees and can better help us
reach our climate goals. We have 5 to 7 years to act, to stop leeching from
the soil-based emissions and we are working on every part of
that nationally important river system and its catchment to
restore it back to health. An excavator has to fill old
drainage channels to re-wet the bog, a difficult task for a peatland that
covers more than 100 hectares. But it’s the only way for
water to start collecting again. Mustonen develops a
tailor-made plan for each wetland. We have to be very
carefully thinking where are we
putting the actions and the example of how
deep or big the dam should be to enable the right water level. The painstaking work has now
been converted into a unique system for restoring wetlands
across Finland. Snowchange oversaw about 66
rewilding projects through 2023, financed through
donations and investors. A demanding mission,
but also highly rewarding. Mustonen is especially happy
about nature’s return in Linnunsuo. Migratory birds that had long
disappeared have returned, along with more than 200
other animal and plant species. This place shows that
with persistence, courage and scientific commitment,
we can still have a chance. And that's the biggest message
we can tell from Linnunsuo. A message from Europe’s
far North to the world. Back in Germany, the researchers
from Greifswald are in Hannover to find out how their bog moss
has been faring as plant soil. Greta Gaudig und Sabine Wichmann
are curious to hear the results. Typha, reeds, moss. The research department at the
Lower Saxony Chamber of Agriculture has put the scientists’
recommendations to the test. Potted tomato plants
or balcony plants that grow in 100 percent
paludiculture substrate. This is the first
time I’m seeing that. It’s new, really exciting,
and very encouraging. Whether geraniums or tomatoes: the results show plants
love the peat-free soil. Research manager Michael Emmel believes in the
paludiculture substrates and says they’re also suitable
for commercial greenhouses. This material is ideal
and has great properties. But cost is a problem. Right now, it can’t compete
with peat economically. It’s just too expensive to grow. But the potential is huge. White peat is usually used
in plant soils in Germany. Replacing it would require growing
moss on around 40,000 hectares. Just rewetting a small fraction
- 2.2 percent - of Germany's peatlands
could meet the demand. Greta Gaudig hopes farmers
will also see the potential. My vision is that many agree and use paludiculture moss
substrates in horticulture. That many farmers say: Yes, this is an
alternative for me that makes sense. Peatlands can yield
more than mosses. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, scientists are researching
another marsh plant. Typha, or cattails, are
also thought to be promising. The plants are robust
and highly versatile. Here we are. Water levels are regularly checked to
determine when cattails are happiest. 58 centimeters. 58? In wet peatlands, typha grow
even when there’s a drought. And they can cope
with heavy rain. The plants are sturdy and
an ideal building material. Here you can see what
people want for construction. Insulating materials:
a structure with air gaps, which insulates
well and is very light. These walls can also be used
to make load-bearing elements. Some in the
construction sector have already seen the
potential of the robust plant. This is blow-in insulation material. It can be used like
cellulose flakes or wood fiber. You can still see the
shape of the leaves. It has an airy structure, it's solid,
has a high load-bearing capacity and can insulate
at the same time. The researchers now need pioneers
and policies that support them. And progress is
already being made. The German government began
supporting paludiculture in 2023, helping protect peatlands. I’m convinced that this is a great
opportunity to create synergies between peatland protection,
sustainable agriculture and the supply of
renewable raw materials. And that's what we need
to address climate change and create a livable future. One new collaborator is
just a few kilometers away. Harvest time in the
rewetted peatland. Farmer Henning Voigt
grows moor grass. I'm checking to see if
the bales soaked up water during the recent rain. Voigt has been harvesting
moor grass from these fields every summer
for eight years. His father began
the process and now the 29-year-old is turning
more and more to bog farming. The experts in Greifswald
share some of the thanks. This is what I can contribute to the
climate, to help solve this problem, use resources more
sustainably and help our climate. And this is my chance to do something
for this small area that I call home. Bit by bit, the Voigts rewetted
two-thirds of their farmland. They decided to become paludiculture
farmers at their own risk. They have yet to receive
any special subsidies. This wasn’t subsidized
so we had to work economically
from the very beginning. Combustion was the most
feasible and quickest to implement. And as a result, my
brother-in-law took the step to install this heating plant
as a pilot project, a prototype. -Hey Ludwig!
-Henning, hey! Ludwig Bork burns around
4,000 bales of dried moor grass each year in his
biomass heating plant. The carbon footprint is negative, because burning the grass doesn’t emit
more CO2 than it stored while growing, and the rewetted bog
absorbs additional carbon. The Greifswald Mire Center was always
very generous with its knowledge, which allowed us to make
scientifically sound decisions. This would have been
impossible without them. They helped us feel
confident that this was feasible. The entire town now benefits
from the innovative family business. Their biomass heating plant supplies
a school, several office buildings and about 500 apartments
with affordable heat, even amidst an energy crisis. In Malchin, restoring a peatland
became a win-win situation for the climate, farmers
and the local population. Researchers in the
US are also looking at how important peatlands
are for the climate. Biologist Natalie Griffiths and
soil scientist Randy Kolka are using these glass
towers to research what a global climate
policy should look like. And to do this, the
biologist and climate scientist are peering into the future. This is just an
experiment to demonstrate that this is how it might look
50, 100, 150 years from now. The Marcell Experimental Forest. A U.S. government research
station in northern Minnesota. The facility has an annual
budget of about 5 million dollars, making it one of the most expensive
climate experiments in the world. Natalie Griffiths is overseeing
a groundbreaking project on how plant debris in peatlands
will decompose if the climate changes. Samples have been buried in bags. We want to get a better sense
of what's going to happen to these ecosystems
under future climates. They're very critical
ecosystems for carbon. This carbon has been deposited
over thousands of years. And so it's really important to
understand what's going to happen under warming for these
really high carbon ecosystems. Kolka and Griffiths
heat up the peat, simulating a different
climate in each glass tower. How will the bog behave at
9 degrees of global warming? The bags provide crucial clues. This one has been
in for seven years. It's pretty decomposed. We have a lot of other
bags buried in this peat here. The higher the temperature, the more the organic
components in the peat decompose. And the more harmful CO2 gets
released - a disaster for the climate. Warming really increases the rate
of decomposition in the peatland. And so we absolutely
turn the ecosystems from sinks of carbon
to sources of carbon. And that's an additional source of carbon dioxide and
methane in the atmosphere. That's really not well accounted
for in these global models that predict our future climate. Their data helps develop
and optimize scenarios to better assess the
impacts of climate change. This is going to stay out
here for another three years. Back, back in the ground. Randy Kolka helped
establish the research station more than 10 years ago. The 58-year-old isn’t
just researching the future, he also wants to help shape it. The biggest thing that we're
learning is that we can affect how these ecosystems behave
now and into the future. And if we want to
mitigate or limit the ability of our ecosystems like peatlands
to influence climate change, we need to start thinking
about doing some things now. Their findings have raised
the awareness of peatlands at the highest political levels. And they are feeding into the UN Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, or IPCC, reports. We’re very proud of
the impact we’re making and unbeknownst to this community,
you know, 20 years ago was really the critical
importance of these ecosystems. And so peatlands were
relatively understudied. But the current research
is going to impact and get to the decision makers
at all levels of government to start thinking about how to
conserve these ecosystems. The scientific evidence shows that peatland protection
equals climate protection. And the potential is enormous. Although peatlands cover just three
percent of the world’s land area, they store twice as much
carbon as the world’s forests. They may look
dangerous or mystical but these unsung carbon
sink champions could become the ultimate climate saviors.
