Paludiculture: Large-scale Demonstrations

This topic will support the European Green Deal, notably its climate objectives and the EU proposal for a nature restoration law^[1] of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030. Earth’s natural terrestrial carbon sinks, in particular peatlands and wetlands, are expected to play a crucial role in reaching EU climate objectives thanks to the conservation and restoration of ecosystems with large potential for carbon sequestration.

Projects results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Practical options for the development of paludiculture and pathways for the conversion of degraded organic agricultural and forest soils to paludiculture are demonstrated.
• Recommendations for the approach to be taken towards large-scale deployment of paludiculture are developed.
• The carbon sequestration potential of paludiculture is quantified, including an assessment of its potential contribution to the achievement of EU targets.

Project activities should:

• Establish large-scale paludiculture demonstration in three areas of at least 50 hectares each;
• Involve all relevant actors (farmers/foresters, scientists, advisors, local/regional public authorities, industry, etc.) throughout the different stages of project development and implementation;
• Consider the potential for activities demonstrated in the project(s) to be replicated and scaled up, and to this end develop recommendations for policymakers and land managers;
• Include a dedicated task, appropriate resources and a plan on how the project(s) will collaborate with other projects funded under this topic and with project(s) supported through topic “HORIZON-CL6-2024-CLIMATE-01-2: Socio-economic aspects of paludiculture”;
• Where relevant, build links with projects funded under Horizon Europe Missions, in particular the Missions “A Soil Deal for Europe”, “Adaptation to Climate Change”, and “Restore our ocean and waters by 2030”. Relevant topics from the Mission work programmes include HORIZON-MISS-OCEAN-2022-01-02 “Danube river basin lighthouse: Protection and restoration of wetlands, flood plains, coastal wetlands and salt marshes and their biodiversity” and HORIZON-MISS-OCEAN-2021-02-04 “Danube river basin lighthouse – coordination activities”, as well as the Mission implementation monitoring system that will be part of the Mission Implementation Support Platform for reporting, monitoring and coordination of all relevant implementation activities.

[1]Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on nature restoration, COM(2022) 304 final, 22.06.2022