National Peatland Rewetting Programme (Sweden)

Sweden's drained organic soils used for agriculture and forestry emit greenhouse gases roughly equal to the country's passenger-car traffic. The government funds a dedicated rewetting budget line, administered by Naturvårdsverket (the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) as part of the "Myllrande våtmarker" (Thriving Wetlands) environmental objective and Sweden's National Strategy for Thriving Wetlands, recognised by the Ramsar Convention.

In 2023 the programme rewetted 2,100 hectares of drained wetland across 588 individual projects, including about 1,500 hectares of peatland specifically, for an estimated 6.1 kt CO2eq in avoided emissions that year. At the current national rate of roughly 1,500 hectares of peatland rewetted per year, Sweden still has several million hectares of drained peatland to address.

A 2025 peer-reviewed evaluation (Ambio) found that Sweden's emission-factor estimates for rewetted boreal peatland are still largely extrapolated from natural-peatland analogues rather than direct post-rewetting measurement, with only two long-term before-after-control-impact (BACI) monitoring sites (Trollberget, Skogaryd) in the whole country — meaning the climate benefit, while directionally clear, is not yet verified at a level suitable for a formal carbon-credit standard.

Read the full analysis: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12569276/