LIFE Tourbières du Jura — Peatland Rehabilitation Programme (France)

Between June 2014 and November 2021, the Conservatoire d'espaces naturels de Franche-Comté coordinated the LIFE Tourbières du Jura programme, rehabilitating 55 degraded peatlands across 14 Natura 2000 sites in the Doubs and Jura departments of the French Jura massif. The EUR 8.05M programme was co-financed 46% by the EU LIFE+ programme, 40% by the Rhône Méditerranée Corse Water Agency, and the remainder by regional and departmental councils and project partners.

Rehabilitate degraded peatland hydrology across Natura 2000 sites in the French Jura to re-establish open, water-saturated, peat-forming conditions.

Concrete works included neutralising 26 km of drainage ditches, restoring 15 km of watercourses, rehabilitating 33 hectares of former peat-extraction zones and reopening 57 hectares of encroached wooded cover. Beyond the physical works, the programme engaged around 7,000 residents and elected officials, 1,050 schoolchildren, 400 students and 1,060 environmental professionals through site visits and outreach events.

The original 2014-2021 programme's public reporting emphasises hectares and kilometres of physical restoration rather than a verified cumulative tonnes-of-CO2 figure, so the carbon evidence rests on restored hydrology as a proxy rather than direct flux measurement. A follow-on project, LIFE RestituO (2022-2029), is now extending hydrological restoration to 70 further degraded sites in the same departments, with a stated objective of reducing GHG emissions by 5.03-31.40 t CO2e/ha/year depending on a site's initial degradation.

Multi-source financing and a funded 2022-2029 follow-on project demonstrate institutional continuity, but the practice's carbon and biodiversity outcomes for the original phase are reported as restoration outputs rather than independently monitored ecological trends.