On November 6 2017, Tom Kirschey, NABU’s head of International Peatland and Southeast Asia projects, and Letícia Jurema, project manager of LIFE Peat Restore, took part in the COP 23.

NABU/LIFE Peat Restore, in collaboration with the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation conducted a successful side event at the German Pavilion: ‘Towards a new Compact on Peatlands for Climate Protection”. Experts discussed how to improve the awareness of peatlands for climate change mitigation. Tom Kirschey was one of the panelists, along with Franziska Tanneberger from Greifswald Mire Centre, Martial Bernoux (FAO), representative for the Global Peatland Initiative, Juliette Biao Koudenoukpo from UNEP, Budi Wardhana from the Indonesian Peatland Restoration Agency, Christiane Schell from German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Sakhile Koketso from the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Bas Tinhout from Wetlands International.

Among the issues discussed and questions raised, panelists conformed that a binding legal framework is needed to reduce emissions from degraded peatlands. In addition all particpants agreed that further effort is needed to generate standardized inventories of all Partie’s peatlands. Moreover, cooperation for funding and sharing of knowledge identified as issues to be included and strengthened within the UN convention.

Furthermore, the event provided the opportunity to talk to high-ranking politicians about the project. Tom Kirschey met with the European commissioner for the environment Karmenu Vella and highlighted the importance of peatland protection for achieving the EU’s climate change goals.