#peatlands

#peatlands

Anyone visiting farmer Henning Voigt's operation near Germany's Baltic Sea coast stands a good chance of getting their feet wet. About 25 years ago, his father began rewetting a once-drained peatland. "We've been an organic farm since 1996 and currently manage 350 hectares (864 acres) of grassland. Most of it is very wet," Voigt says. Speaking with DW, Voigt explains that the hay they harvest from these wet fields is burned in a power plant to produce district heating.

"Our peatlands are this country's Amazon rainforest - home to our most precious wildlife, storing carbon and reducing flooding risk," U.K. Nature minister Mary Creagh said.

"Rewetting bogs is all about reducing the carbon emissions from the bare peatlands," says Doreen King, emphasizing the importance of restoring natural ecosystems for carbon sequestration.

"Just to be crystal clear, a policy of planting on peatlands that we have spent years trying to restore, trying to preserve, this policy would be environmental madness."