Peatlands can be found in almost every country in the world, but we areonly just starting to realise their value and how to harness their potential asa powerhouse nature-based solution. The more we learn about peatlands,the more we value the important services they provide - controllingfloods, purifying and supplying water, safeguarding species,harbouring deep cultural meaning, inspiring creativity and offeringlivelihoods to millions of people. We cannot afford to lose them or abusethem. A lack of understanding of peatlands’ vital role in the landscape, combined with outdated policies and perverse incentives, means that peatlands continue to be drained and damaged around the world. Peatlands are our largest terrestrial organic carbon stock, and if we are to meet ourglobal goals and commitments, we must work hard to understand,protect, restore, and sustainably manage these vital ecosystems. This Peatlands Across Europe: Innovation & Inspiration Guide is a valuable step towards that reality – it captures important recommendations, shares the cutting edge experiences of peatland restoration pioneers, and identifies gaps, priorities and lessons from across Europe that can be taken up by peatland practitioners around the globe.
MULTIFILE
Species rich grasslands provide ecosystem services such as floral and faunal diversity, livestock forage, carbon sequestration and water regulation. However, the best combinations of sward diversity and management intensity to achieve the above-mentioned ecosystem services are not fully known. To address this, we established experimental grasslands with three sward types with varying diversity levels: productive monoculture (PM; perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne)), biodiverse (BD) and productive biodiverse (PBD; i.e., diverse sward with species selected to increase forage quantity and quality) and with a management gradient ranging from extensive (i.e., low input, late mowing) to intensive (i.e., high input, early mowing). After three years, we found successful establishment of biodiverse swards with high forb cover, particularly under extensive management, but changes to meadow bird habitat parameters (i.e., sward height and vertical vegetation density) were negative. Forage dry matter yield was highest in BD and intensively managed swards in 2019 and 2020, but intensively managed swards had higher dry matter yield regardless of sward type in 2020. Forage N concentration was highest in PBD swards and digestible organic matter was highest in PM and PBD swards, indicating the productive plants species added to the PBD swards improved forage quality. Improvements in carbon sequestration and water regulation were minimal. Collectively, diverse swards, different management regimes and their interactions benefit certain ecosystem services, but not all. Taken together, these findings pull focus on the need for careful consideration of sward species composition, management and their interactions in order to maximise specific ecosystem services in young, mown grasslands
LINK
In this article, we assess the potential of alternative land use systems using non-drainage peatland species which could eventually phase out or partly replace oil palm plantations on undrainable peatlands. We have used the ecosystem services approach to analyse what scenarios using drainage-free peatland species could be suitable alternatives for oil palm cultivation on peat and how these scenarios compare to oil palm plantations in terms of selected ecosystem services. Our results indicate that alternative paludiculture systems will provide more direct and indirect ecosystem services than oil palm plantations on peat. We also found that stakeholders were aware of issues with growing oil palm on peat, and that there was a general intention for sustainable use of peatlands amongst several groups of stakeholders. Replacing oil palm with alternative systems such as paludiculture in Malaysia is not yet realistic. The most important impediments are a lack of knowledge on potential of non-drainage peatland species and its associated value chains, as well as the technical difficulty for smallholders to implement such a system. We recommend starting experimental plantings with paludiculture systems to further test species performance, life cycle analysis, growth, intercropping limitations and possibilities, yields and improvements in the value chain.
MULTIFILE
The seaweed aquaculture sector, aimed at cultivation of macroalgal biomass to be converted into commercial applications, can be placed within a sustainable and circular economy framework. This bio-based sector has the potential to aid the European Union meet multiple EU Bioeconomy Strategy, EU Green Deal and Blue Growth Strategy objectives. Seaweeds play a crucial ecological role within the marine environment and provide several ecosystem services, from the take up of excess nutrients from surrounding seawater to oxygen production and potentially carbon sequestration. Sea lettuce, Ulva spp., is a green seaweed, growing wild in the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea. Sea lettuce has a high nutritional value and is a promising source for food, animal feed, cosmetics and more. Sea lettuce, when produced in controlled conditions like aquaculture, can supplement our diet with healthy and safe proteins, fibres and vitamins. However, at this moment, Sea lettuce is hardly exploited as resource because of its unfamiliarity but also lack of knowledge about its growth cycle, its interaction with microbiota and eventually, possible applications. Even, it is unknown which Ulva species are available for aquaculture (algaculture) and how these species can contribute to a sustainable aquaculture biomass production. The AQULVA project aims to investigate which Ulva species are available in the North Sea and Wadden Sea which can be utilised in onshore aquaculture production. Modern genomic, microbiomic and metabolomic profiling techniques alongside ecophysiological production research must reveal suitable Ulva selections with high nutritional value for sustainable onshore biomass production. Selected Ulva spp lines will be used for production of healthy and safe foods, anti-aging cosmetics and added value animal feed supplements for dairy farming. This applied research is in cooperation with a network of SME’s, Research Institutes and Universities of Applied Science and is liaised with EU initiatives like the EU-COST action “SeaWheat”.
