News/All pieces

Acoustics, art and cardboard

All in this fresh issue of our NL

23/05/2025 The current issue of the Paludiculture newsletter tells how peatland is represented in the new “Land Use” focus of the Berlin Futurium and about new courses and training programmes on peatlands. It shares news about the new cardboard box of a large German DIY store produced with a share of paludiculture biomass. In the Paludiculture interview, scientist Alexander Drexler explains why he doesn't need to hear anything himself during bioacoustic monitoring. Also: newly launched projects, new publications and an overview of current events on peatlands, climate protection and paludiculture in the calendar. We hope you enjoy reading the newsletter and would be happy to receive feedback on it by e-mail to communication@greifswaldmoor.de.

Paludiculture in a garden box

New pilot product!

25/04/2025  "Achieving mo(o)re together" - this is the motto under which OBI Group Holding, a member of the „Alliance of Pioneers“ of the toMOORow initiative, launched its first paludi pilot product in April: a plant transport box made from 10% reed canary grass. From the “field” to the OBI store, the box passes four different stations:

At the Swabian Donaumoos-Zweckverband, the reed canary grass is harvested on rewetted peatland in the Donaumoos. The company Fiber365 processes the paludiculture biomass into fibers using an innovative, environmentally friendly process. The LEIPA Group uses a mixture of these fibers, among others, to produce a cardboard base. Leopold GmBH Verpackungen then uses this to produce the actual cardboard.

This is intended for customers to transport small plant pots from the markets to their homes. In Germany alone, the DIY and garden market sells around 46 million plants every year.

Ground-breaking ceremony & Sernitz

Rewetting has started

01/04/2025  A symbolic ground-breaking ceremony marks the start of the establishment of a wet meadow paludiculture by the toMOORow initiative - wet mires for a sustainable future. The peat meadows in the Sernitz Mire serve as a model project: drainage ditches are now being filled in, sills are being built in the flow to retain water and a sustainable use through paludiculture covering an area of around 80 hectares will then be established with local farmers. The measures help to keep water in the landscape, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 1,200 tons of CO₂ equivalents per year and enable the reintroduction of typical peatland plant and animal species.
The initiative is thus continuing years of work to restore natural conditions in the Sernitz Moor in the “Schorfheide-Chorin” biosphere reserve as part of the LIFE project “Lesser Spotted Eagle”. In consultation with local residents and land users, measures for water retention were developed, pastures for water buffalo were established and a mire experience trail was designed, to name just a few examples of the successful project.
The Federal Ministers Steffi Lemke and Cem Özdemir attended the launch, as they see the activities in the Sernitz as a strong signal for sustainable peatland use by the toMOORow initiative of the Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswald Mire Center, and the Michael Otto Environmental Foundation.

Kicking off WETSCAPES 2.0

with people on a 2-day event

01/04/2025  WETSCAPES 2.0, a large, interdisciplinary science consortium dedicated to researching rewetted fens started today with a 2-day meeting at Rostock University of more than 50 scientists from diverse fields, including 22 Principal Investigators (PIs) leading various subprojects, along with many Early Career Researchers (ECR).
Their diversity highlighted just how complex and ambitious this research programme funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft is, aiming to investigate approximately 100 screening sites, 5 core sites, and two landscape-level experiments in rewetted peatlands of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. This federal state has rewetted already more than 10% of its peatland area and is frontrunning in developing solutions for wet peatland use (paludiculture, carbon credits, nature tourism, peatland photovoltaics). Now, the CRC will add a massive effort in fundamental research in rewetted fens.
The kick-off included a trip to one of the planned screening sites, where installed the first of our 1,000 sensors used for the project’s data collection! For some of us, it was the first visit of a North-German fen. They are almost everywhere and look often like 'normal' grassland!
Besides the funding of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - German Research Foundation, the Transregio Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 410 is additionally supported by Universität Greifswald Universität Rostock, Leibniz Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei (IGB), Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, GFZ Helmholtz-Zentrum für Geoforschung  and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.