Muddy footsteps against climate change

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Here on Rügen, in Germany's smallest national park, there is no play in the mud, a moor is being repaired here.

Volunteers work on one of the around 100 moors in the Jasmund National Park on the island for the non-profit association "Bergwaldprojekt eV".

The student Johanna also swapped her laptop in her home office for rubber boots and a water bucket.

Johanna, student:

“It's just a great change.

You do something useful.

It's just a bit like an adult school trip with a cool thing to do.

Yes, and you always come to extraordinary places here in Jasmund and can help ensure that they are preserved.

The volunteers want to bring the moor back to a condition that is "close to nature".

That means: water covers the entire soil, special plants and animals, which are adapted to life in the bog, find optimal conditions.

But to do this, the water has to be channeled back into the right direction.

Lutz Rohland, Bergwaldprojekt eV:

“A real moor takes a little more time than a couple of years.

We claim that we rehabilitate the areas hydrologically, i.e. bring the water back to its original height.

And the fact that we are into peat means that bog can grow here.

Maybe in 50, maybe in 200 years, maybe in the year after next.

That is decided by the area. "

Intact moors are important climate protectors.

Plant residues decompose very slowly in wet soil.

This creates a layer of peat that can not only store a lot of water, but also binds harmful greenhouse gases such as Co2 and nitrous oxide.

Drained bogs, on the other hand, release a great deal of Co2 and thus contribute to global warming.

Dr.

Ingolf Stodian, Department Head Jasmund National Park:

»We are very big in the consumption of CO2.

Every German needs eleven and a half tons per year.

This is our footprint.

And if you do the math, if we renaturate a 4-hectare bog and save 200 tonnes of CO2 equivalent there per year, that's 16 to 18 people who then actually live CO2-neutrally. "

The effort in mud mud could be worthwhile for people and nature in the long term.

Because moors cover only 4 percent of the area of ​​Germany.

However, it is estimated that they store around a third of all carbon stocks - as much as all German forests put together.

The effort and costs involved in protecting the climate with intact moors are therefore comparatively low.

Most of the moors, however, have long since run out of water.

In order to be able to use them as green or arable land, they have been drained in the last few centuries.

Peat is also still extracted in Germany today.

Experts and climate protection activists have long called for the drainage of the peatland to be stopped.

You accuse politics of inaction.

The Union and the SPD actually intended to develop a strategy to protect the moors.

But the environment and agriculture ministries could not agree.

And so young people volunteer to repair the moor - and with it a little bit the climate.