MINSK, 4 February (BelTA) – The new law on the protection and use of peatlands in Belarus is an important step to meet the country's commitments under the Paris Agreement, BelTA learned from the press office of the United Nations Development Program in Belarus.
The law establishes the legal framework for the protection of peatlands and the rational use of their resources. It aims to preserve wetlands and restore their biosphere functions. The law is also a step towards the implementation of citizens' rights to a favorable environment and natural resources management.
Under the Paris Agreement, Belarus has undertaken voluntary commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 35% by 2030. Repeated swamping and restoration of peatlands will help reduce CO2 emissions across the country.
According to Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Andrei Khudyk, some 60,000 hectares of inefficiently drained wetlands have already been restored in Belarus under international technical assistance projects. “Today our country is rightfully among the world leaders in wetland restoration. We are confident that the new law on peatland protection will help Belarus meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement and will enable us, in close cooperation with our partners, make a significant contribution to the effective fight against climate change at regional, national and global levels,” he said.
The adoption of the law was preceded by extensive work. The first step was the inventory of all wetlands in Belarus under the UNDP-GEF (Global Environment Facility) projects Peatlands 2 and Wetlands. The next step was the development of the Strategy for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Peatlands and the Program of Peatland Distribution by Area of Use through 2030. The documents were adopted by the Belarusian government in 2015. They made the basis for a new law to establish the legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of peatlands.
“For more than 20 years, the UNDP together with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of Belarus and other partners has pursued a purposeful policy in the field of sustainable management of the Belarusian wetlands which have international importance. Six large-scale projects have been implemented, which have become the basis for the adoption of the law. This is a unique experience for the whole region to preserve vulnerable natural ecosystems, which Belarus can share at the global level,” UNDP Resident Representative in Belarus Alexandra Solovieva said.
According to Aleksandr Kozulin, head of international cooperation at the Research Center for Bioresources at the National Academy of Sciences o Belarus, the scientific coordinator of the UNDP-GEF project Wetlands, the restoration of the hydrology of a swamp ecosystem allows it to perform one of its main functions, namely the climatic one, which is to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and release oxygen instead. Scientists explain that drained peatlands and disturbed swamps turn from carbon sinks into its sources. Large-scale work to restore peatlands has already enabled to reduce peat fires, which are the main source of carbon dioxide in Belarus. This has drastically changed the situation with CO2 emissions in the country. The problem of the use of peat soils in agriculture remains.
A long-term plan will be developed in 2019-2021 for sustainable use of 260,000 hectares of peatlands. The project is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by almost 3.2 million tonnes over 20 years. This will be possible thanks to the restoration of 12,456 hectares of degraded and inefficiently drained forest peatlands, prevention of deforestation and reduction of forest degradation, environmental rehabilitation of the drained Dokudovskoye peatland and substitution of fossil fuels with renewable energy from marsh plant biomass.
