Moore als natürlicher Klimaschutz

How humans use peatlands is a question for the future. In order to answer it sustainably, Jakob Rehder examines promising instruments of environmental law, identifies their structural deficiencies, and develops differentiated reform proposals.

How humans use peatlands is a question for the future at the intersection of climate protection, biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation, and economic viability. At present, more than 90 percent of Germany’s peatland areas remain drained, thereby generating around seven percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. For peatlands to develop permanently from a source of greenhouse gases back into natural carbon sinks, German and European environmental law are indispensable. Yet how can their legal instruments interact most effectively in practically relevant fields of action? To date, legal scholarship has lacked a monographic study addressing this question. Jakob Rehder closes this research gap.
He adopts a governance-theoretical approach and follows the three-dimensional principle of sustainability as a guiding concept. On this basis, he develops transparent evaluation criteria and argues in favor of a coordinated set of instruments tailored to large-scale rewetting and multifunctional land-use models. His study demonstrates that the current legal framework is structurally not yet capable of meeting this challenge. Two deficiencies stand out in particular: the sectoral blindness of environmentally media-specific regulatory law toward hybrid forms of land use, and a normatively unbalanced relationship between the protection of damaged peatland ecosystems and their restoration. Against this background, he proposes differentiated reforms ranging from water-law approval and maintenance provisions to funding conditions under European agricultural subsidy law and the codification of ecological self-compensation in nature conservation law. In this way, the study contributes to the foundational debate on strengthening the effectiveness of the principle of sustainability.

Erster Teil: Moorflächen, Nachhaltigkeit, Steuerung
A. Moorflächen als Realbereich - B. Nachhaltigkeit als Leitkonzept - C. Steuerung nachhaltiger Moorflächennutzung
Zweiter Teil: Steuerungsinstrumente de lege lata
A. Zulassungsregime - B. Bewirtschaftungsregime - C. Gebiets- und Artenschutz - D. Raumplanung - E. Ergebnisse des Zweiten Teils
Dritter Teil: Steuerungsinstrumente de lege ferenda
A. Instrumentenübergreifende Betrachtung - B. Instrumentenspezifische Betrachtung - C. Ergebnisse des Dritten Teils
Zusammenfassung in Leitsätzen

• By (author) Jakob Rehder