Dear colleagues,

This Special Issue will highlight contemporary research on sustainable and climate-smart technology and finance and management models to support tropical peatland conservation and restoration.

The United Nations Environment Program identifies tropical peatlands across South East Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and South and Central America. Tropical peatlands provide important ecosystem functions, including being home to the world’s largest terrestrial carbon sinks and a wide range of biodiversity, and playing a role in balancing hydrological flows. They also often support the livelihoods of local communities. However, increasingly, tropical peatlands are vulnerable to human and climate-induced threats, including disturbance from deforestation, drainage, and fire for purposes including agriculture, forestry, and resource and infrastructure development. Disturbance of tropical peatlands is an increasing source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (5-10% of emissions globally), regional air pollution (from burning), and socioeconomic, biodiversity, and environmental damage. Wide variability in tropical peatland spatial extent and status of disturbance exists across regions and countries. For example, in some countries, disturbed tropical peatlands are already a leading source of GHG emissions and seasonal fires, while others remain largely undisturbed. Hence, complex but often locally specific trade-offs exist between conservation, development, and livelihood considerations, among stakeholders including government, private sector, and communities in and around peatland areas.

Thus, there are increasing climate, environment, socioeconomic, and political imperatives for devising and implementing sustainable and climate-smart technology and finance and management models for the conservation and restoration of disturbed and undisturbed tropical peatlands. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to the following:

• An increased technical understanding of tropical peatland dynamics (including carbon and nitrogen cycles and vulnerability to climate change impacts), rewetting regimes and revegetation practices;
• Emerging stakeholder-led management models, including local and community-driven approaches and private sector value chain transparency and conservation schemes;
• Leveraging the power of innovative technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, digital mapping, and satellite imagery, to improve conservation and restoration activities;
• Mobilizing promising sources of finance for conservation and restoration, including climate finance and peatland bonds.
• Embedment into national and local government policy and enforcement programs and linkages to relevant international agreements, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Ultimately, it is hoped that findings can help improve the plight of tropical peatlands, their role as carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots, and the sustainability of livelihood opportunities for communities living in and around peatland areas. It is also hoped that by taking a global approach, the insights and findings from one region may be relevant for the sustainable management of tropical peatlands in other regions.

We hope to encourage rich discussion on this important topic and look forward to your potential contribution.

Supplementing existing literature: Peatlands have long been recognized in the scientific literature as important carbon sinks [1–4]. More recently, and worryingly, their increasing role as sources of greenhouse gas emissions has been confirmed, so much so that they are now considered a major global source. For example, tropical peatlands are responsible for an estimated 5–10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally [5]. Beyond the climate change imperative, there are strong biodiversity and livelihood considerations for tropical peatland areas. While the literature on the science of peatlands is increasing, there is less translation of that information into sustainable and climate-smart models for the management of both pristine and degraded peatlands. This Special Issue hopes to promote discussion of such management models and accompanying policy, technology, and financial innovations that may facilitate and support them. Ultimately, it is hoped that the knowledge generated in the Special Issue can help to reduce or reverse the recurring and accelerating disturbance of tropical peatlands and facilitate an exchange of ideas between regions to help do so.

References:

• Harriss, R., Gorham, E., Sebacher, D. et al. Methane flux from northern peatlands. Nature 1985, 315, 652–654.
• Crill, P. M., Bartlett, K. B., Harriss R. C. et al. Methane flux from Minnesota Peatlands. Global Biogeochemical Cycle 1988, 2 (4), 371–384.
• Armentano, T.V. Drainage of organic soils as a factor in world carbon cycle. Bioscience 1980, 30, 825–830.
• Moore, T. R., and Knowles, R. Methane emissions from fen, bog and swamp peatlands in Quebec. Biogeochemistry 1990, 11, 45–61.
• Günther, A., Barthelmes, A., Huth, V. et al. Prompt rewetting of drained peatlands reduces climate warming despite methane emissions. Nature Communications 2020, 11, 1644.

Dr. Bradley Hiller
Dr. Shailendra Mishra
Guest Editors

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• tropical peatlands
• conservation
• restoration
• climate change
• sustainable management
• finance
• technology
• policy