WCC 2016 Res 043 - Progress Report

Implementation of this resolution is being led by the IUCN UK National Committee's Peatland Programme and the CEM Peatland thematic group, with the support of other IUCN members. In 2018, a key achievement was the successful launch of the UK Peatlands Strategy, which aimed to drive and co-ordinate action across the UK, supported by country level plans. This has also been used as an example of peatland strategy development and showcased internationally. Currently additional data is also being collected from a subset of 175 peatland countries, targeting both countries with a significant peat resource and those that have large emissions arising from damaged peatlands, thus fitting closely with the conserve-and-protect ethos of the IUCN Resolution 43. This can then potentially also feed into the policy sections of the Global Assessment of Peatlands (2018) led by the Global Peatlands Initiative, which IUCN is part of. Simultaneously, the work done here is also aligned with recent Ramsar resolutions to maintain peatland ecosystem services for future generations, whose implementation is being supported by Germany and Denmark, among others, and on which an International Workshop was organised on 'Peatland Conservation and Wise Use in the Context of Climate Change', which was also reported on by Germany in its activity report.