Long term engagement, what after Care-Peat?
Long term engagement, what after Care-Peat?
Eurosite – the European Land Conservation Network was mainly responsible for enhancing the effects of the Care-Peat project in the long term.
Care-Peat ended in December 2023 and to avoid the fate of many similar initiatives which are ceased when the financial support is finished, Eurosite and the Care-Peat partners decided to formalise the cooperation between project partners beyond the project in the form of a Eurosite Thematic twinning under a name of “Care-Peat Project Alliance”.
- Peatland Research Support Group
- Peatlands & Agriculture Support Group
- Regional Peatland Platforms in Ireland, the Netherlands, France and Belgium (Flanders)
The first and oldest initiative, started already in 2019, is Peatland Restoration and Management Working Group that aims to:
- facilitate the knowledge exchange of peatland restoration, research, and management across the EU and build the knowledge base and examples of good practice;
- involve as many relevant organisations and peatland projects as possible, tackling various issues related to peatland restoration and management;
- developing an action plan for the roll-out of peatland restoration in NW Europe region and wider.
One of the other important results of the project was also the sharing of good practices and experience gained from the project. We used for that PANORAMA – Solutions for a Healthy Planet, which is a global partnership initiative to document and promote examples of inspiring, replicable solutions across a range of conservation and sustainable development topics, enabling cross-sectoral learning and inspiration. The following case studies are disseminated with use of this platform:
- Stimulating carbon storage in disturbed French temperate peatlands
- The Winmarleigh carbon farm
- Cloncrow Bog Natural Heritage Area - restoring a degraded Irish midland raised bog
- Hydrological restoration in drained fen peatlands in Belgium
- Peat Pits in De Wieden (the Netherlands).
Finally, it is very important to highlight that the experience gained by the project partners in the Care-Peat project supported the development of new projects such as e.g. Life Multi Peat, Peat Pals for Life , EUKI Peatlands. All of this will generate a great potential of the partnership to contribute in the peatland conservation, restoration and sustainable management.