Farm, restore and model: responsible management of peatlands for a sustainable Canadian horticultural peat industry

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The Canadian peat industry and its association (Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association - CSPMA) have promoted the ecological restoration of residual peat deposits as their first choice of rehabilitation strategies. Peatland restoration attempts to resolve the conflict between the environmental impacts and economical use of peatlands by enabling the return of ecological functions after peat extraction. Industry based research programs initiated 20 years ago successfully developed a restoration method for bogs (peatlands dominated by Sphagnum) but there is still some habitats within bogs (margin zone) or type of bogs, namely forested, saline and block-cut peatlands, in need of further research to achieve sound ecological restoration. Optimization of Sphagnum farming techniques for the sustainable production Sphagnum fibers is also of interest for the CSPMA. Moreover, new harvest techniques can lead to the exposure of the underlying minerotrophic peat and mineral deposits. For those sites, restoration towards a minerotrophic peatland (fen), or a wet meadow, may be more desirable. Within all those types of land use management, measurements will be conducted to evaluate the return of different ecosystem functions, namely the specialised plant biodiversity of peatlands, natural hydrological regime and long term carbon sequestration following different management options. The proposed research program is pan-Canadian and is guided by a perspective of sustainable and responsible development of the peat resources.