The United Nations (UN) Global Peatlands Initiative is an effort by leading experts and institutions formed at the UNFCCC COP in Marrakech, Morocco, in 2016 to save peatlands as the world’s largest terrestrial organic carbon store and to prevent it being emitted into the atmosphere. The current greenhouse gas emissions from drained or burned peatlands are estimated to amount to up to 5% of the global carbon budget — in the range of two billion tonnes CO2 per year.
Members of the UN GPI are working together to improve the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of peatlands. In this way, the UN GPI contributes to several Sustainable Development Goals, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining ecosystem services and securing lives and livelihoods through improved adaptive capacity.
IMI has been contracted to deliver an evidence synthesis training programme designed to build capacity for evidence synthesis across the global peatland research community. The aim being to generate a series of evidence synthesis papers and policy briefs responding directly to the needs of peatland policy teams worldwide. Training participants will make evidence-based recommendations to help protect, restore and sustainably manage peatlands.
This training is provided in collaboration with Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) and St Andrews University, with funding from the British Academy and the UN Global Peatlands Initiative.