Cloudberry on a mire. — Photo: Chaitanya Suárez Rojas

More coherent Swedish policy needed for restoration of peatlands

News published: 02/12/2025

The new EU Nature Restoration Law can be an important tool to form a coherent strategy on peatland restoration. A new SLU study shows that todays policies and regulations is fragmented and sometimes contradictory – something that makes it difficult to reach Swedish climate and conservation goals.

Mapping of policies on different levels

In the study, researchers have analysed a multitude of policy documents, strategies and regulations that refer to peatlands on a global, European and national level. The analysis also includes documents regarding, amongst other things, biodiversity, nature conservation, climate change, agriculture, forestry, energy, land use and water.

The aim was to study how coherent the guidelines are as well as how they affect the possibilities to restore peatlands in Sweden.

Contradicting and inexplicit guidelines

The results show that the different policy documents pull in different directions. Some enables continued extraction of peatland for energy purposes whilst others, especially within environmental protection and agriculture presses on the need for restoration.

The researchers also found that peatlands are barely present in guidelines within the forestry sector, such as the Swedish National Forest Program or the Forestry law. This means that a sector with strong ties to land use has no clear guidelines for how to manage peatlands.

— We identified both overlaps and gaps in how it is regulated today. There are guidelines pointing towards continued extraction and others focus more on protection and restoration, which creates ambiguity for decision-makers and actors within the sector, says Chaitanya Suárez Rojas, SLU.

Portrait photo of Chaitanya Suárez Rojas — Chaitanya Suárez Rojas. Photo: Mona Bonta Bergman, SLU

Researchers recommend: need for a coherent national strategy

Based on the results, the researchers recommend that Sweden takes the opportunity to use the new EU Nature Restoration law to create a more coherent national policy for peatlands, like the ones present in for instance Finland and Germany.

Sweden is behind on reaching its peatland restoration goals: out of the goal for rewetting 100 000-hectare peatland in forests by 2040 only 3 600 hectares had been restored in 2024.

The researchers say that a national strategy should:

Coordinate present guidelines
Build on nature-based solutions and ecosystem functions
Contain sufficient funds, including compensation for landowners
Ensure that responsibility and mandates are clearly allocated

— A more coherent strategy would increase effective adaptation actions and contribute to Sweden reaching climate goals, Camilla Widmark, SLU concludes.