Peatland Integrated Management

Peatland plays a crucial role in the global water cycle and is an important source of freshwater. It is also a significant carbon sink, and its degradation has negative impacts on both water resources and climate change. The PEAT-IM project will develop a peatland restoration program covering the identification and mapping of peatland areas, development of management plans for peatland conservation and sustainable use, restoration of degraded peatland through rewetting and revegetation, promotion of sustainable land use practices on peatland through technical assistance and capacity building, monitoring and evaluation of peatland conservation and sustainable use efforts, and education and awareness raising on the importance of peatland and its conservation. The developed program will be followed up by regular monitoring of peatland ecosystems to assess the effectiveness of management actions, review and update of management plans as needed, regular reporting on peatland conservation and sustainable use efforts to relevant authorities and stakeholders, and implementation of adaptive management strategies to respond to changes in peatland conditions. RISE Fire Research is an approved research institute in Norway but does not receive public basic funding, mainly due to our size. This means that we have less support for costs related to research applications compared to larger research institutes in Norway. We have been involved in multiple successful EU applications and have shown the ability to deliver high-quality research on those projects. The PES funding will greatly reduce our financial burden and provide opportunities for us to collaborate with other leading EU partners.