Professor Hans Joosten:

That is the question of monitoring. We know there is strict relationship between the level of other environmental factors and emissions. We have developed methods for monitoring these changes, such as the greenhouse gas emissions site types model, in which we identify 60 land use types where we simply monitor emissions from peatlands by way of their vegetation. It is possible that this could be also commercially applied and acknowledged by the verified carbon standard, the largest voluntary carbon standard in the world. We are able to do so and, in respect of peatlands, we can simply say how much the emissions are and what the future emissions will be, depending on the result of the rewetting. If we dam up a ditch, we cannot exactly predict how much the water level will rise. Of course, we can make a general prediction and calculate the emission reduction, but all carbon schemes are based on monitoring over time to check whether the expected emission reductions have really been achieved, and only these carbon credits are sold.