Background
Despite the growing awareness of the importance of peatlands, there are still critical information and research gaps that must to be filled to understand the contribution of peatlands to climate change mitigation and their role as a vital Nature Based Solution. Filling these gaps can only be achieved with the cooperation of all the actors involved include commitments for action against further drainage or degradation of peatlands and progressive rewetting and restoration efforts. These approaches offer not just the tropics, but the entire world a low-cost, low tech and high impact opportunity to leverage peatlands as a Nature-Based Super-Solution to address the climate emergency. Nature needs time to heal, so intact healthy peatlands need to be protected and managed to remain that way, while degraded peatlands are restored as soon as possible.
The session will share how tropical forested wetlands, especially peat swamp forests, play a fundamental role in climate change mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, panelists will share why keeping healthy peatlands wet is dually important. Further the discussion is designed for open dialogue around the following points:
- Understanding the challenges and opportunities of restoration projects
- Understanding how restoration projects can optimize management activities
- Understanding which aspects of restoration should be emphasized to maximize impact
- Understanding the importance of conserving and sustainably managing intact peatlands
ITPC, Global Peatlands Initiative partners and tropical peatland practitioners and researchers will also using the discussion as an opportunity to distill key points for restoration strategies, serve as a forum to express the interests and commitments of project managers, donors, private companies and NGOs working on peatlands to collaborate within the Global Peatlands Initiative and ITPC networks for knowledge sharing of restoration and conservation management projects to draw the world’s attention to conserve, protect and sustainably manage these unique systems.
Moderator/Speakers:
- Welcome and speaker’s introduction
Moderator invite for short talk from each speaker
→ Tim Christophersen - Importance of collaborative research and linking science to practice through innovation – ITPC
→ Agus Justianto - The urgency peatlands monitoring systems in advising on decision-making and policies aimed at improving management of peatland landscapes
→ Mette Wilkie - Technology and private sector innovation for peatlands restoration and conservation, capacity building and private public partnerships – sharing the success of the conservation area on their peatland which is seeing a rebound of rare species
→ Tsuyoshi Kato
For more information, please contact:
- Dr. Haruni Krisnawati
ITPC Lead Coordinator: H.Krisnawati@cgiar.org - Budhy Kristanty
CIFOR Communications Officer: b.kristanty@cgiar.org - Dianna Kopansky
Global Peatlands Initiative Coordinator, UNEP: dianna.kopansky@un.org
