Forestry on drained peatlands is not sustainable

Forestry on drained peatlands cannot be considered close to sustainable without radical changes, according to Mika Nieminen, a leading researcher at Finland’s Natural Resources Institute.

Nieminen disputes an earlier claim that only 10% to 20% of drained peatlands are economically unprofitable. He argues that including sites with weak profitability would produce a much higher figure, and questions whether marginal returns can justify the extensive damage forestry causes to peatland ecosystems and waterways.

He also challenges the idea that ditch renovation will largely disappear. While drainage may not be needed again on heavily forested peatlands, Nieminen says clear-cutting, still the dominant method of regenerating peatland forests, leads to renewed drainage. He cites research indicating that water quality in forest areas will continue to worsen as clear-cutting and associated drainage increase on peatlands first drained during the 20th century.

Nieminen presents restoration as beneficial not only because it reduces pollution from the restored peatland itself. Restored peatlands can also reduce pollution from a much larger forest area whose waters flow through them.

For peatland forestry to become sustainable from the perspectives of water quality and greenhouse-gas emissions, he calls for a shift from clear-cutting to continuous-cover forestry, blocking ditches to limit peat decomposition and erosion, and a much greater investment in restoration.