About the project
Restoration of degraded peatlands in Norway is expected to contribute to water retention and reduce the total emission of greenhouse gases while benefitting biodiversity. Three alternative restoration measures are evaluated in field studies. NIFS contributes with studies of the regulatory framework.
Legislative framework
Any activities on Norwegian land including construction and ecosystem restoration must be in accordance with local land use and development plans. While climate and sustainable land use are the overarching goals of the Norwegian planning and building act, the governance of restoration (a novel land use category) in general, and peatland restoration, remains undefined. The growing interest in, and demand for peatland restoration requires the identification of available land areas and the legislation governing their use. Peatland restoration implies land use change and must therefore be governed by the planning act. Different implications of peatland restoration and consequent land use change on various affected parties (e.g., landowners, end users and stakeholders) must be accounted for. We will focus on following research questions: 1) Our first, legal doctrinal research question is to study the possible approaches to effective restoration, which also account for the other interests and stakeholders’ needs in the area that are included in current planning system. 2) We will further use those approaches to explore the possible need for changes, de lege ferenda, in the current planning system to accommodate peatland restoration 3) Thirdly, we will investigate the consistency of other laws with regards to peatland restoration. A fitting example is the current prohibition of any reversion of agricultural soil by the Land Act strongly restricting the restoration of degraded areas.
Incentives for ecosystem restoration
Norway lacks behind Germany and UK with regards to creating incentives and regulatory framework for ecosystem restoration. We will explore the UK quota system, i.e., the Biodiversity Metric and the Mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain planning requirement in England, for ecosystem restoration and assess the possibilities to adapt such a model in Norway. The potential adaptation should account for differences in natural resources, ownership patterns and regulatory framework.
Objectives
Our work package focuses on exploring the restrictions and possibilities of Norwegian legislative framework for future incentives for peatland restoration. At the end of the project, we aim, at minimum, to assess the potential research needs and strategies to improve the governance structures and practices.
Outcomes
We plan two 60 ECTS master's theses as the basis for project deliverables corresponding to the research tasks described above.
Background
PEATWAY is coordinated by the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA).
