Paludiculture – Agricultural Use of Rewetted Fen Peatlands in North Eeast Germany

Authors:
Christian Schröder, Wendelin Wichtmann, Sabine Wichmann; Hans Joosten

Book:
Proceedings of the 14th International Peat Congress

Venue:
Stockholm

Keywords:
biomass, caterpillar, peatland-agriculture, processing

Documentfile:
Schröder et al 2012: Paludiculture - Agricultural Use of Rewetted Fen Peatlands in North Eeast Germany

Summary:

Theme III. Agricultural use of peat and peatlands

SUMMARY

Mainstream land use of peatlands requires drainage, which causes severe environmental problems including soil degradation, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient efflux and loss of biodiversity. Paludiculture, i.e. wet peatland agriculture can avoid these negative effects and offers a new sustainable land use option. The VIP Project (Vorpommern Initiative Paludiculture) develops and implements paludiculture on degraded peatlands in NE Germany. New techniques for harvesting biomass from wet peatlands and for using wetland biomass as a raw material for industry and for energy generation are tested. The first results of newly developed processing lines provide additional arguments for rethinking current agricultural use of peatlands.