Exploring the Nexus Between Research and Policy for Wetland Restoration

Mark Reed, a researcher specializing in ecosystem markets and environmental governance, explains how researchers and policymakers can work together to restore our wetland ecosystems.

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Nature conservation has never been more needed. Specific ecosystems, such as wetlands, play a crucial role in mitigating the dual crises of biodiversity and climate change. Yet, these lands, which are home to unique wildlife that cannot survive elsewhere, are being lost at an unprecedented rate. 

Approximately 15% of global peatlands have been drained or degraded. This represents a significant loss, considering peatlands occupy only about 3% of the Earth’s land surface but store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined. So, how do we protect and restore these key lands? 

In his recent book “The Researchers’ Guide to Influencing Policy”, Mark Reed, a Professor in Rural Entrepreneurship from Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC), believes environmental policy to be the answer. In an interview with Earth.Org, he explains how implementing it requires cooperation between researchers and policymakers. However, he emphasizes that for policy to be truly impactful, we need to rethink both how we understand the policymaking process and the contribution researchers make to it. 

He further argues that researchers must actively engage with affected stakeholders, so that the policy reflects the needs of these groups. 

In an interview with Earth.Org, Reed talks about effective approaches to turn research into environmental policy and his work for WET HORIZONS, an EU-funded project that aims to fast-track wetland restoration in Europe.

Earth.Org: Are certain groups or communities more affected by wetland loss than others?

Mark Reed: There are millions of people who live in and around wetlands and peatlands, and who rely on them for their livelihoods. Some livelihoods can coexist happily with peatlands in their natural state, others are less happy bedfellows.

There’s a real tension in terms of enabling people to maintain their livelihoods, especially for agriculture, but at the same time, protecting those carbon stores.

In many places the trade off to human survival is too great. So, we are looking at wetland agriculture as one alternative. This can significantly reduce the emissions from agriculture. At the same time, a restored peat bog can be good in terms of protecting downstream populations from flooding and so it can protect water supplies. 

Earth.Org: You mentioned the less than happy bedfellows, who are worried about their livelihood being impacted. How can we, from a policy point of view, overcome their concerns?

Mark Reed: I think the first thing that we need to understand is that people who own and manage these areas have often held these in their families for many generations. This means that they have valued cultural uses of these landscapes and important archaeological stores within these peatlands. Therefore, I find it problematic that we would think I am trying to protect these landscapes by throwing people out.

We need to find a way to manage these environments so that people can continue living as they have, while protecting both our cultural and natural environments.

Earth.Org: If you want to make an impact for change, what would come first, research or policy?

Mark Reed: I believe that we have all the evidence we need about the realities of climate change, the causes and the solution.     

Research now needs to move increasingly away from simply understanding the nature of climate change and its causes to researching its solutions. Politicians and businesses may or may not fund this, but we need to understand the social, cultural, business and political context in which we are trying to tackle this climate change crisis. Then we can devise the kinds of social and political strategies that will enable us to implement what we already know we need to do.

Earth.Org: Can you give us an example of a policy you have worked on to restore wetlands that was implemented?

Mark Reed: During my PhD, I gave a lecture on climate change and realized that carbon credits could potentially fund wetland restoration, an idea I shared in a research article later featured by the Guardian.  

After securing funding, and ten years of collaboration with the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, we gathered enough evidence to launch the Peatland Code in 2015, the UK’s first carbon market for peat restoration. It is now the second-largest voluntary carbon market in the UK, restoring thousands of hectares of peat each year. We partnered with the UK government to integrate this into subsidy programs, allowing farmers to combine public and private finance through the WET HORIZONS project. We have trialed blended finance options with the Scottish government, ensuring farmers can still receive funding if carbon markets falter.

We are now working with Wetlands International, the UN Environment Program, and the Global Peatlands Initiative to analyze peatland policies across Europe, holding countries accountable for their commitments and scaling up restoration efforts with government partnerships and Horizon Europe projects.

Earth.Org: The WET HORIZONS project focuses on filling gaps and missing data. Could you elaborate, from a policy and stakeholder analysis point of view, what is the missing data that we need to give to policymakers?

Mark Reed: The WET HORIZONS project is helping fill a number of gaps in our knowledge about what happens when you restore and sustainably manage a peatland and the difference in emissions that you get between a damaged versus a restored peat bog in different parts of Europe.

This is important because when we understand that now we are able to make the political argument about restoring certain peatlands and prioritizing the most degraded of them.

Earth.Org: Is this how the project contributes to supporting decision makers? 

Mark Reed: Yes. This data enables us to construct emissions factors that enable us to infer greenhouse gas emissions saving when you move from one land use category to another. Using this data we are able to improve existing carbon markets in countries like the UK, Germany and the Netherlands and make them more accurate and evidence-based.

But this is also the kind of evidence we need to create new markets in other WET HORIZONS countries such as Romania or Poland, where money from carbon markets secured enabled more peatlands to be restored and sustainably managed in a way that is good for the climate, nature, and farmers.

Earth.Org: The relationship between policy and makers and researchers can be complex. Why is it important for them to work together?

Mark Reed: I think the traditional answer is that policy needs to be evidence based and that by working with researchers, policymakers can make policy that is more likely to work.

However, I would contest this and suggest that there is often too close a relationship between policymakers and researchers. If the policy makers are following a democratic mandate, they will take the different lines of evidence, from multiple studies and projects. They will synthesize this together with the perspectives of the people who live and work on that land and those who care about what happens to our environment. All of them may have very different ideas to researchers.

We need to remember that many of the populations who live and work in wetlands and peatlands are often remote and impoverished and do not have access to consultations, which are often online in different languages or use very technical language. The researcher needs to take responsibility for representing the needs of these people and, where possible, give them a voice in the corridors of power. In doing so, our policy colleagues are able to hear their perspectives alongside our evidence so that they can do their job to the best of their ability.

Earth.Org: Based on this, how can researchers influence policy? 

Mark Reed: As researchers, we need to be aware that simply informing politicians very often has limited impact. There is no guarantee that the high-quality evidence that we have often funded will actually reach the relevant teams, and they will understand and be able to use that.

I advocate for going beyond simply informing to build relationships with relevant policy teams and to work in a more co-productive way with them based on their needs based, limitations and constraints. This will help answer the questions that they need answering. In doing so, there are multiple tools that we can use that will be genuinely influential and communicate the heart of what we are speaking about, so that we communicate deeply and empathically with those we engage with.

Earth.Org: And how could the public contribute towards wetland restoration policy? 

Mark Reed: There are ways that politicians can take climate action whilst ensuring that the policies they take protect the interests of the poorest and the most vulnerable in society. This does not have to be a tradeoff, so my first point is to support our politicians and to continue putting pressure on them to do the right thing.

I would urge people to go out into nature, find your nearest peatbog, explore it. Be in awe of the plants and animals that live there. If you happen to bump into a gamekeeper, a farmer, a conservation manager, whoever it may be, tell them how much you appreciate the work that they are doing to protect these landscapes.

Dr. Reed’s book “The Researcher’s Guide to Influencing Policy” was published on 18. September. It provides advice and tools for researchers working with policymakers.