Conventional peatland agriculture and forestry is based on drainage, which enhances peat oxidation, causes massive greenhouse gas emissions and eventually destroys the peatland subsistence base. In contrast, paludicultures use biomass from wet and rewetted peatlands under conditions that maintain the peat body, facilitate peat accumulation and provide the associated natural peatland ecosystem services. In the temperate, subtropical and tropical zones, i.e. those zones of the world where plant productivity is high, peat is generally formed by roots and rhizomes, and peatlands by nature hold vegetation of which aboveground parts can be harvested without substantially harming peat conservation and formation. Besides traditional yields of food, feed, fibre and fuel, the biomass can be used as a raw material for industrial biochemistry, for producing high-quality liquid or gaseous biofuels and for further purposes like extracting and synthesizing pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Some outstanding examples are introduced, including low-intensity grazing with water buffalos, biofuels from fens, common reed as industrial raw material and sphagnum farming for horticultural growing media. Paludicultures may support substantial co-benefits, including the preservation and sequestration of carbon, regulation of water dynamics (flood control) and quality, and conservation and restoration of typical peatland flora and fauna. They can provide sustainable income from sites that have been abandoned or degraded. In many cases, paludicultures can compete effectively with drainage-based peatland agriculture and forestry, certainly when external costs are adequately considered. Various technical and political constraints, however, still hamper large-scale implementation of this promising type of land use.
