A network of international research organisations prepared a Policy Brief related to the topic of peatlands and paludiculture, containing recommendations for EU Member States for their CAP Strategic Plans.

The Policy Brief was prepared for the EU Pavilion day at the COP26 United Nations Climate Conference, focused on agriculture, land-use and forestry. SOMPA was one of the projects involved in writing the brief. The main author for the compilation of the brief is the German Greifswald Mire Center.

Key messages of the Policy Brief:

1) A wide range of paludiculture crops should be listed as eligible for direct payments under national CAP Strategic Plans, notwithstanding their listing under Annex 1 to the TFEU

2) i) If a paludiculture site qualifies for payments as ‘eligible hectares’, the application for payments by farmers should have as little extra bureaucratic procedures as possible to encourage many farmers to take it up.

ii) CAP Strategic Plans should have clear and simple requirements for eligibility of areas to make it clear for farmers and landowners to pre-emptively see if they can apply for this option.

3) Member States should clearly state in their CAP Strategic Plans that paludiculture and peatland rewetting is recognised as an eco-scheme option and attractively program them to encourage voluntary uptake.

4) Pillar II instruments should be taken into account within National CAP Strategic Plans to make paludiculture implementation possible

5) Conditionality standard GAEC 2 should set higher ambitions beyond just keeping the destructive status quo of peatland utilisation. Data gaps on peatland distribution and status may be found in administrative datasets; these should be updated with R&D efforts as soon as possible and implementation not delayed to 2025.

See the Policy Brief: