honest to her. i think. they see sarah connor my city has an arsehole. an exclusive report from a destroyed city. philippines in the sights of virus starts april eleventh on d. w. . and. europe needs pete but extracting it has become almost impossible in germany so now the industry is getting its raw material from the baltic states. and i'm going to be. on the extraction permit process in germany takes a long time and it's expensive so companies have been forced to look elsewhere. environmentalists are trying to put a stop to feed extraction experts like consuls tin say it seriously damages the

environment and the climate. is the odd ball the people companies are like the last hunter gatherers they empty one peep august and then move to the next one. peach sources in western europe have been almost depleted but we still consume vast amounts of it extraction is a highly controversial topic. more it's barking is managing director of classman deilmann the world market leader in peak extraction and production the company started out as a small factory in one thousand nine hundred thirteen in lower saxony but peat stocks in northern germany will be exhausted in a few years' time. it took a long time for. classman deilmann to agree to let us film the company was worried

that video of pete extraction would be bad for its image. booking says that the peak industry has long since stopped destroying more land that's still intact so they're not damaging the environment. for more than a decade we've been working with the new ball roll materials like wood fiber green waste compost and coconut fibers and they can gradually replace peat even in commercial gardening. but how much can be replaced with today almost ten percent we aim to increase that to fifteen percent over the next two and a half years as the company continues to grow it will increase its use of renewable raw materials. so as not parts of the most often. one of those raw materials is wood specifically would waste which is refined into fibers.

if it's material has an airy quality and we like that in you that the texture is similar to pete so it allows it to get to the roots of plants and can also hold on to nutrients. right now we're doing research to see whether we can bring the quality of these materials up to a standard that we've come to expect when you. can. live. in northeastern germany he's considered the world's leading expert on more land. knowledge is that the peat industry is looking for something to toots but. on the other hand i think that some large companies could actually do a lot more in these are what they've been dragging their feet. through to lose the roof in the or did it come up with proposals but i simply allow pete farming to

continue the way it always has moved to coal mining business as usual why go to market. protecting the more lands also helps to protect the climate more is absorb carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas this more land near the town of on clam is now covered with water again. true friend if you go for that actually happened by accident north of the docks broke in one thousand nine hundred five and again in one thousand nine hundred six. the authorities decided it would be cheaper to leave the land flooded than to pump it dry or fix the dikes and build new pumping stations for shuffle. right now the austin is inspecting the site and he's brought along a guest indonesia's ambassador to germany. before the dikes broke there was a drained more here which was used as farmland. now the swamp land has returned

with numerous species of birds and plants many parts of germany used to look like this but over centuries ninety seven percent of the more drained environmentalists say that's a record amount. this observation tower provides sweeping views of the more land the indonesian ambassador. grossman know is concerned about the state of drained mors in asia two issues in. the dry moore's can easily catch fire and those fires are tough to contain because they also burn underground this is a recent more fire in lower saxony the blaze covered a huge area similar fires in indonesia have consumed hundreds of thousands of hectares and killed several people the government has set up

a separate ministry to deal with the problem. this agency is possible for doing the right thing it landed in different parts of indonesia it has a very ambitious program of preventing two million i thought it was and so far we have. two hundred thousand dollars sauteeing we are under right track. pete has to remain in the soil and should be allowed to grow like here in un tom it's good for the climate and the environment and protects against soil erosion but peter extraction continues around the world much of it is used for plant production professional gardener michelle homan is fully aware of this situation home and runs a nursery near the town of ferritin in lower saxony these pots are made of peat home and grows young plants for organic farms all over northern germany.

morals and the amount of more land is limited so we're planning to reduce our use of peat and that's going to take some time. nish kerner. coleman has cut peat consumption by thirty percent which won his nursery and green certification peak contains no nutrients and always has the same low ph value so it's perfect for large scale horticulture especially as an alternative to machine based production. this land's modest could not grow here without peat. kind of a sagal you could almost say that it's like most clinic and it doesn't seem like peter told tall it's just what we need here it's the glue that holds together all the other materials we use of stops a chance so that we can produce

a cube of any size. so as a matter it doesn't it really don't have to hold the material together with a plastic pot on. an issue but on top for about loss. the young plants first grow in these cubes then they're delivered to other nurseries and planted in saw oil. peak is key to the production of vegetables are working to improve their image. that is saw them and we're developing a report on sustainability and a few years ago we lost the transparency offensive to make sure that consumers understand our place in the chain and. we want to show them the entire process by which fruits and vegetables get to the market.

this is should move to a town located on little baltic coast. lithuania like its neighbors latvia and estonia joined the european union in two thousand and four their economies are slowly improving all three baltic states are subject to e.u. environmental standards but each one has different policies on more land. klansmen deilmann was one of the first german companies to start extracting peat in the baltic states for example of the more near shooter the soviets had extracted peat in the baltic region for decades now private companies are taking what's left despite klansmen diamonds claims of transparency the company did not allow us to film its operations here.

the company's pete extraction site is located near the nature reserve this part of the moore is managed in part by germany's nature and biodiversity conservation association. tom cure shai who works for the group takes a dim view of private companies peat extraction efforts here. dollars from fisherman companies say that they'll only work on more that have already been damaged but any kind of peat extraction causes damage or the history of. the nature reserve had already been drained but not much detail been extracted here conservation groups have filled in more than one thousand ditches to prevent the land but now the birch trees are dying because they are standing in water. to twenty and biologists or kindness has been helping to preserve this site for

nearly twenty years this area was first described in about one thousand nine hundred by german scientist car vega. or of book. three thousand or three thousand dollars it was three thousand lower dose or two thousand either. cut through. one thousand or the nature of the. ton kish i conducts research at the more and that's not an easy task. but i'm becoming gonna try and it looks like we can't get in there are told by this vegetation goes right up to both sides of the trench. we can't go any further it's over have to do it at the front. of the fight the fifty five i call and.

there's probably still enough pete in the baltic region to last for another one hundred years but consumption is rising especially in asia. here in the baltic states the peak is much and the scale of peat extraction is quite different. right now the baltic countries produce about two million tons of people a year for the european market. almost five hundred thousand tons of that comes from lithuania although. the one in the tower and ahead of me on or is. this all feeds into an industrial system of vegetable production. the peaches often shipped distant markets for example to stop in spain or thought the environmental balance for the peat land is absolutely negative it's much more than and the strain

that it's actually necessary for p. production and indeed war. and. this move for the that creates climate protection problems and destroys the valuable habitats. in all. alone it's not clear whether german companies are destroying the moore's here but it's not easy to return more land to its original state. and when these areas are wet again the people forming vegetation does not come back on its own like that myself on a small scale. i shred the plants a new vegetation starts growing from those fragments. eventually this area will be covered again with a cushion of people moss. sees the situation differently from his novel calling a kindness remembers that during the soviet occupation the troops drained nearly

all of lithuania's more land and used the peat mostly to burn his fuel. these days many lithuanians have developed a new interest in the more lands this nature trail attracts a lot of visitors despite the sometimes inclement weather. just ten percent of the mornings that are still intact have been preserved in lithuania. and in germany there are few places left where people can observe this diversity of plant and animal life. at an observation tower sponsored by classman deilmann we asked about the german companies that extract peat here. no more call for new. or good news. you have walked through the route through

a shoe he was walking will be well for example. or why don't you. accumulate my gear for restoration warks. the. german peter extraction companies are apparently welcome in the baltic states. coffee from the state of lower saxony runs a company that extracts peed in latvia. working in the more difficult heavy machines can easily get stuck in the soft ground. the soil yields not only peat but also a lot of dead pine trees some are up to two thousand years old the wood is shredded and then burned in the local power plant. by the this people so that we could keep

an eye on the market fire in the baltic states. at the same time pete extraction is decreasing in northern germany. no but london told them of the need to get the permits are now harder to get because extraction is now only allowed on old farmland. inflation eloped is. in germany peat can only be extracted if it lies under meadows and fields and latvia can be extracted from forest land but the land has to be drained first existing more land cannot be drained but peter extraction permits are relatively easy to get here and there's not a lot of red tape. another advantage is lower labor costs and the peat producers have agreed to rework the lands where peace has been extracted even though they're not obliged to do so.

it's not too late that means that you could use the land for forestry later on but that's not allowed in germany you have to return the land to a completely natural state that's the muslims it's one up and down up but it's also possible that latvia may impose tougher conditions for peat extraction maybe even tougher than what we have here in germany from the involved in the uk on it's this and if you like all staffers in the indoor it's like. going to a car finds peat moss in the forest next to his people and that's a rare sight in germany these days. though you name embezzling peat moss growing right here. as this in this wooded area is located on more land you can see that the trees are stunted when he does or still a very small especially the pines in the branches. so i need to keep state enough to live on the because. there are people books everywhere like this one.

very dry now because it's summer. and that. germany has drained its more land so thoroughly that the peat moss was practically extinct that us that in germany this would certainly be an area that you would try to protect. but here in latvia there are so many areas like this i invite and they're not really worth protecting that's. going to be a hot after pete is extracted from an area like this it would be easier to return it to its natural state than a field that had been completely harvested because typical peat land plants grow here. once you austin says that if pete must be extracted it is better to do it in germany than in the baltic states thereby there is no good it's not a good idea in any case but if we do have to extract peat to meet demand ones are

the better place to do it is in germany. also to have both of these extraction is governed in germany and in the baltic states by regulations but here with extraction can take place only on farmland given by in the baltics it can be done on land that is even better prospects for restoration of the better do you harbor for less full of shore. or not they're not then you have to transport the peat from the baltics to germany but that's all that's like a for the environment. about to commit off for. more peat could be extracted here in lower saxony but environmental groups are dead against it. but if pete is so valuable for food production and supplies of peat are limited why does classman dominate actually burn some of the peat in the baltic states. one of the company subsidiaries in lithuania supplies peat directly to power stations.

the company's home page describes it as cheaper fuel. peat is also extracted near shooter. baltic countries are even promoting the use of peat as an alternative to russian natural gas they've used to produce one hundred seventy thousand megawatt hours of energy anough to power fifty thousand homes in germany for a year. in the town in lithuania we sometimes have people that doesn't meet the quality standards for horticulture it's high in carbon content and has largely be composed as its mission we mix it with wood chips so that lithuania can use it as a domestic alternative to fossil fuels that's not so interested not just to india. yeah that's a start move of course these days that's ridiculous stock or bond cool art of color

and soft coal can hardly compete with the renewable energies any more or done for the r.v. it generates less energy per ton than coal in the gobi and produces more c o two per unit of the minute he made all the use of your heat as fuel is out of date today and not an option for the future the forty two and three can if that were thought of to go. to burning peat for fuel does not exactly enhance the peak company's environmental image but sometimes people do surveys and consumers are able to work together in hung cows in lower saxony going our car has joined forces with pete researchers to develop a project that could help to save more land around the world. peat moss is cultivated here on a large scale the idea is to use local freshly harvested peat moss instead of digging up more's in the baltic states scientists from dr spiled came up with the idea what. we. call has provided the

land and supports the project with his own money the area is so so good that people use snowshoes to get around. he's in an airport and we're quite satisfied with our progress. and we have a variety of substrates that is gardening soils mixed from the peat moss. we've tried them out at various nurseries we're still in the development stages but it seems to work well for more land plants like heather and we've worked with one nursery to produce larger quantities of poinsettias i know. so in general we're happy with the results from going through them through that through. the brown stripes in this green meadow our pete moss fields drainage ditches have been filled in to provide the necessary moisture. real hard always ground out of pete moss cross best in an environment where the water level is just below the tops of the

plants. normally peat moss stops growing during the summer because it gets too dry . or loses all more fruit but it also project they have plenty of water and can grow up all summer long. oh my god it's hard to tell that this used to be more land if you can find traces of it only if you dig down into the subsoil guy's fault biologist credit county wants to find out exactly how much peat is left here. we've done some drilling so that we can study the content of the more including the remaining layers of peat. we want to find out whether this area is suitable for peat mosque and. we've determined that there is about a metre and a half of peat left. and the you want to oneself the proof in.

the peat can hold a lot of water even in dry summers like this one and that's good for peter maass plants that had almost disappeared here like the sun dues are making a comeback. they thrive on the thick cushions of moss and these plants are also able to bind carbon dioxide. more land binds carbon and releases oxygen when the area dries out the process is reversed the carbon recombines with oxygen molecules and produces c o two a greenhouse gas. lived how. the water levels high here in order to sharply reduce emissions of greenhouse gases which cause serious climate damage through building that's a big plus. under four dollars forty four we're also trying to find options for using more land in ways that don't harm the climate and preserve the peace while

providing good productivity and a stable regional income to political unity that we don't go to your knowledge i'm obliged to growing more people would solve a lot of problems but there is not enough moss seed that's why most of the moss harvest from lower saxony is used to seek new fields forty thousand hectares would be needed to completely replace the peat that's consumed in germany researchers aim to optimize this process then convert and we'd like to see harvests of five six or even up to nine tons of dry matter per year in hector. so that's quite high compared to the productivity normally found in more land. and of. critical dig is studying peat plants from all over the world. she's trying to determine which ones grow fastest and create the most biomass. and how to

boost peat moss production and control the growth of weeds. fancy alston says we have to act quickly because the food production process keeps demanding more peat. for then these are for once the meat has been extracted from these pre-trained moore's you'll have to start using the intact borders if you want the sort of heat that's used for growing tomatoes and peppers or cut out of the get real and there is simply no alternative because the demand is so high. it is. used in once to set minimum environmental standards for pete extraction companies to do that he works with the international people and society at an i.p.s. symposium last year in rotterdam scientists and company executives met to discuss the future of peak production the conference was held on

a hotel ship in rotterdam harbor. i believe in the left far too little has been done over the last twenty years i would hope the field go through the site a lot more time and money should have been invested to find alternatives for pete to limit the use of peak to low value applications and so forth. but not enough has been done because pete has always been a high quality resource that is too cheap and too widely available. bar the reason . the conference host is i.p.s. president carriage milewski a former klansman deilmann employee. good morning and a very warm welcome to the first ever global peace plans and pete in the streets summit. many here are critical of yost in his policies they say that growing peat moss still needs a lot of research and that more land should be flooded only after the peat has been

extracted but we can find alternatives for your expertise with my ideas etc and with joint practices and experiments and study every can do it. but things won't likely change as long as pete extraction in the baltic states remains cheap and efficient what's more china has started copying european methods of vegetable production demand for peat could eventually exceed fifty million tons per year new markets like china will create tempting opportunities for peak companies. a mystery of the stone age. giant artworks that still kept available

today. thousands of years ago. but why. and what do they reveal about the people who make that. seventy five minutes on. the clues to the curious and. do it yourself network or the new bureau maxim channel. don't miss out.

this is d. w. news wire from berlin britain faces a no deal breck's a vote today after teresa mayes second crushing defeat in parliament lawmakers will decide on whether to leave the e.u. without an agreement that after two years of negotiations last night the prime minister's final deal to leave the e.u. was rejected by a massive margin.