FAO is organizing an expert workshop “Towards more sustainable land management practices for peatlands – special focus on drained areas” on 3 - 4 April in Rome. The workshop concentrates on emissions from drained peatlands in agricultural use (including plantations, forests and managed grasslands) from different parts of the world. The aim of the workshop is to:

• Discuss advances in mapping the degraded peatlands and the quantification of their emissions.
• Gather informaiton, and the information gaps of locaiton, use and potential for changing land use of the peatlands soils in agricultureal use, and existing initiatives working on these issues.
• Develop ideas for a guidebook on sustainbale practices or sustainability pathways for management of peatlands soils in agricultural use.
• Create a working group for writing the guidebook.

Questions of the workshop:

• What and where peatlands are? - Special focus on drained areas used for agriculture
• How are drained peatlands used (i.e. food production, pastures, oil palm etc.)?
• How are peatlands managed? What are the options for their more sustainable management? How can we develop sustainability pathways (both for ecosystems and livelihoods)?