Community-led peatland rewetting
Block old drainage ditches so degraded peat stays wet, stops burning and stops releasing carbon, with local people building, siting and maintaining the dams.
Start small
Walk one drained ditch system with 5 to 10 local landholders and a hydrologist over 1 to 2 days and agree where 3 to 5 simple blocks (peat, timber, or stone and heather bale) would hold water. Build them over a weekend with volunteers or paid local labour for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars in materials. Install dipwells and read them monthly for a year before scaling. Agree up front who maintains the blocks and how that is paid for.
The problem
Global warming above 1.5 degrees. Drained peatlands are a large source of CO2 and a major fire and smoke hazard. Rewetting them cuts emissions and fire risk.
Where it fits
Works best where drainage channels are no longer needed (abandoned peat extraction, failed agriculture, old forestry drains), where a recent fire or smog crisis has created political demand, and where there is long-term finance. The community role varies: in Indonesia villages opt in, help site dams and are paid to build them; in Russia and Belarus regional governments lead and local people benefit through fewer fires and uses such as berries, fishing and paludiculture; in the UK partnerships of water utilities, NGOs and landowners lead.
The principle underneath
Peat only stores carbon and resists fire while it is waterlogged. Blocking the drains that lowered the water table is cheap compared with fighting fires every year, but it only holds if the people next to the peat have a reason (safety, income, ownership) and the means (pay, materials, a maintenance plan) to keep the blocks working for decades.
A pattern in nature
Beaver dams that slow water and keep wetlands saturated.
Who to call
Wetlands International (Russia and Indonesia programmes); Michael Succow Foundation and Greifswald Mire Centre; Institute of Forest Science, Russian Academy of Sciences; CIFOR-ICRAF (participatory peat restoration, Riau); Indonesia's peatland and mangrove restoration agency (BRGM); Moors for the Future Partnership and IUCN UK Peatland Programme; APB-BirdLife Belarus.
Watch out for
No long-term maintenance budget, so dams fail or are cut open. Partial rewetting where neighbouring plantations still need drainage. Subsidence and canal erosion lead to overtopping. More attention to tree planting than to water. No livelihood offset (paludiculture, sago, fisheries) for those losing drained-land income. Overestimated economic benefits. Dependence on a single foreign funder or political champion.
Where it comes from
Builds on European mire science, especially Greifswald and the Succow Foundation, which shaped the Belarus and Russia programmes and paludiculture. Large-scale rewetting followed the Belarus fires of 1999 and 2002 and the Moscow smog of 2010; in Indonesia it followed the 2015 fires and the creation of the Peatland Restoration Agency, which promoted canal blocking (sekat kanal) with village participation. Many Indonesian peat villages include Malay and customary (adat) communities with their own peat knowledge; this card describes only the published hydrological approach, and any use of customary practice should be agreed with those communities.
Where it's worked
Peak District and South Pennines, UK (MoorLIFE) · 2010 to 2015
About 2,500 ha of blanket bog protected with around 4,000 stone and heather bale dams and 1.5 billion Sphagnum fragments spread.
DocumentedSource
Jambi province, Indonesia · 2013 to 2019
Communities opted in after the 2015 fires, adjusted dam siting and design, and were paid to build them; dams still worked a year later, but maintenance funding was missing and returns fell below forecast.
DocumentedSource
Bengkalis, Riau, Indonesia · Published 2024
Participatory action research with villages found that shifting from fire to peat restoration depends on local demand, political support, community leadership and viable livelihood models (qualitative).
Peer reviewedSource
Belarus (Peatlands-1 and Peatlands-2) · About 2006 to present
About 50,000 ha rewetted, cutting almost 500,000 t CO2 a year; rewetted sites did not burn in the dry years of 2010 and 2015, and local people use them for berries, fishing and hunting.
DocumentedSource
Moscow and Tver provinces, Russia · 2010 to 2014
Programme scope and partners described; 2014 Tver fires were localised with less haze than 2010, and paludiculture was promoted for rural jobs.
DocumentedSource
Moscow and Tver provinces, Russia · 2011 to 2023
Nearly 95,000 ha restored, about 75,000 ha rewetted against a 140,000 ha target; estimated cuts of about 650,000 t CO2e a year, fewer peat fires and less smog. Led by the Moscow Province Administration with Wetlands International, the Succow Foundation and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
DocumentedSource
Where it failed
Jambi, Indonesia (MCC grants, 2013 to 2018): dams worked after a year but there was no budget to maintain them, community labour and material costs were high, neighbouring oil palm limited rewetting and economic returns fell well below forecast. Central Kalimantan ex-Mega Rice Project (Ritzema et al. 2014): dams raised water tables but did not offset subsidence beside canals, and eroding canals risk overtopping in extreme rain. Russia: tight regional budgets, a COVID delay and leadership changes slowed the programme to about 75,000 ha rewetted against a 140,000 ha target, and local people often did not value peatland services.
Related Fruit
- TreeCommunity forest managementLegal rights to manage, use and earn from forests go to organised local communities, which then protect them better than many parks do.
- SaplingCommunity-based mangrove restorationCoastal communities restore mangroves by repairing tidal flows and protecting natural regrowth, storing carbon and rebuilding fisheries and coastal defences.
- TreeCitizen science waterway monitoringTrained local volunteers regularly test their own creek or river and feed standardised data to agencies, catching pollution early and building a long-term record.
- TreeLandscape rehydration with leaky weirsSmall porous structures and vegetation slow water in creeks and gullies so it soaks into floodplains and recharges groundwater.