Wetlands cover a small percentage of the earth's surface, yet they are essential systems - they are the arteries and veins of the landscape. A world without wetlands would be a world without water, waterbirds and people. Read more...

The project "Restoring peatlands in Russia – for fire prevention and climate change mitigation" includes activities towards promotion of sustainable peatland use, sharing information on paludiculture methods among the local landusers, studies into paludiculture development prospects in Russia, implementation of demonstration projects on growing peat moss and reeds on rewetted peatlands.

The major problems that have been addressed by this component of the Project are the low level of public awareness of peatland values and modern approaches to sustainable use of peatlands, lack of interest of most people as far as peatland conservation is concerned, and low capacity of organisations working in the field of peatland education.

Restoration of human-disturbed natural ecosystems has long been recognized by the world community as a most important activity towards sustainable development. Following the fires of 2002 and 2010 in many areas of Russia, people are generally willing to cooperate in restoration of peatland hydrology as a fire protection measure.

The project aims to contribute to the restoration and sustainable management of degraded peatlands in order to reduce fire incidents and GHG emissions from drainage in European Russian peatlands.