Rewetting Europe's Drained Peat — and Learning to Farm It Wet

The Michael Succow Foundation was set up in 1999 by the German botanist Michael Succow with the money from his Right Livelihood Award, and has worked on mires ever since. Across Germany, Belarus, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Russia it has rewetted more than 15,000 hectares of drained peatland, turning fields that quietly oxidise carbon back into waterlogged ground that stores it. Together with the University of Greifswald it runs the Greifswald Mire Centre, where the concept of paludiculture — farming reeds, cattail and peat moss on rewetted peat instead of abandoning it — was developed and has since been picked up by the IPCC, UNEP, FAO and the European Parliament. Its current programmes range from the toMOORow business alliance in Germany to peatland work in the Baltic states and the Nile Basin.