WETLIFE 2 — Hydrological Restoration of the Amalva and Kamanos Raised Bogs (Lithuania)

Amalva and Kamanos are two of Lithuania's most significant raised-bog and transitional-mire complexes, both long degraded by peat-extraction-era drainage networks. Between July 2014 and October 2018, the EU co-funded WETLIFE 2 project (LIFE13 NAT/LT/000084; total budget €1,564,386, of which €1,173,289 was EU co-financing) restored their hydrology. The project was coordinated by the Nature Heritage Fund (VšĮ Gamtos paveldo fondas) together with the Kamanos State Nature Reserve Directorate, the Žuvintas Biosphere Reserve Directorate and Marijampolė Municipality Administration.
At Kamanos, the project blocked approximately 37 km of drainage ditches to rewet around 670 ha of mire habitat and restore a further 40 ha of lag-zone fen. At Amalva, works raised or rebuilt 6.6 km of perimeter dykes, constructed two spillways and a dam on the perimeter ditch, blocked over 20 ha of underground drains, and cleared encroaching trees from more than 140 ha — targeting regeneration of "active raised bog" vegetation on approximately 775 ha, plus 26 ha of bog woodland and 6 ha of restored wet meadow on previously cultivated land. Water-level monitoring equipment was installed at both sites, and the project agreed sustainable land-management practices with local farmers.
These figures come from the official European Commission LIFE project registry and describe verified engineering interventions and habitat-area targets, not an independently published post-project ecological or carbon outcome study; Evidoria found no site-specific greenhouse-gas flux or peat-oxidation-avoided measurements for either site. The project's After-LIFE Conservation Plan commits the partners to continued monitoring, so the long-term ecological result should be treated as targeted and engineering-verified rather than fully outcome-confirmed.

Read the full analysis: https://lifeprojektai.lt/en/life-projects/lithuanian-life-projects/LIFE13-NAT-LT-000084/