Tens of thousands of hectares of farmed peat soils could be safe from stringent rewetting measures under the European Commission’s nature restoration law, an updated draft of the law seen by the Irish Farmers Journal suggests.

A provision has been made to allow cutaway turf bogs and former peat moss extraction sites to count towards meeting the nature restoration targets set out by the Commission in the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.

Previous documents have suggested a legally-binding target being placed on farmed drained peat soils, with no option to include non-agricultural peatlands in the target.

“Member states may put in place restoration measures in areas of peat extraction sites that provide equivalent climate change mitigation benefits and count those areas as contributing to achieving the targets referred to,” it states.

Additional pressure

The new law is set to place additional pressure on member states to meet nature restoration objectives and would see national restoration plans drawn up stating the targeted area of each habitat-type planned for restoration.

The updated draft of the regulation also includes comments on the Commission’s reasoning on introducing the regulation, with the document stating that a lack of progress towards biodiversity goals up to 2020 shows that voluntary commitments “are not enough to achieve the EU’s objectives for restoring ecosystems”.

The law states that member states should put in place restoration measures on peatlands, with the restoration to be completed on:

  • 30% of such areas by 2030, of which at least a quarter shall be rewetted;
  • 50% of such areas by 2040, of which at least half shall be rewetted and;
  • 70% of such areas by 2050, of which at least half shall be rewetted.