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Click here for the promotion material and social media tool kit!
Who are we?
Click on any picture to start the gallery
and read all about the RE-PEAT team and network
(and enjoy some quarantine-friendly headshots)
Lara-Lane Plambeck
Member of Peat Fest Working Group
"Hi, I’m Lara. I study Cultural Analysis and am interested in bringing together social and environmental justice in academia, culture and activism. I went to COP25 with some people who started RE-PEAT just then. We talked about Peatlands on the bus where I just read about them in “Soil and Soul”. Just after that I realized how much of my own place of birth in Northern Germany used to be peatlands. I feel a deep sense of responsibility and gratefulness for this earth that has been my parental body of choice. And I feep deep grief for the monocultural violation and extractivist exploitation it has been having to endure. I believe that Western bodies and minds need to be decolonized just like the Earth for healing in times of Climate Collapse. I am glad we are here to give back care to peatlands that nurture soil, clean the air and keep us alive."
Gijs Lochten
Member of Media and Promotion Working Group
"Hi hi, my name is Gijs. I’m currently studying philosophy in Belgium at Ghent University. Coming from the countryside, I was interested in getting to know the nature around me from a young age. But as I grew older, I came to learn more and more about climate change and the human destruction of the environment, realising that even in my own countryside village nature had become scarce. That’s why I decided to search for ways to help to protect what I learned to love. I came into contact with RE-PEAT by meeting Ireen during my exchange in Sweden and felt immediately attracted by the focus on peatland. It was only recently that I learned about the importance of peatland and it was even more recent since I discovered a small patch of peatland still intact in my own hometown! It quickly became the place to go whenever I needed to clear my head. That’s why I didn’t think twice about joining this group of RE-PEATERS, where I can share my fascination with these wonderfully weird wetlands with others. By being part of RE-PEAT, I hope to contribute to the protection of peatlands all over the world, so that more people can find their own patch of peatland to help them clear their heads."
Kate Goodman
Member of Bog Academy Working Group
"Hi, I’m Kate. I am currently studying Wildlife Conservation and Environmental Management at Harper Adams University in the UK. I first leant about peatlands in one of my lectures and decided to write an assignment about them which is when I found RE-PEAT. I learnt so much about peatlands and their importance as a carbon sink and how they could improve our climate and so I decided I wanted to take action to spread awareness about peatlands and their benefits as a habitat.
It was only recently that I visited my first peatland. Seeing a peatland in person reinforced my motivation to restore these habitats and protect the species that inhabit it because they’re fascinating."
Okke Reuer
Member of Peat Fest Working Group
"Hey there! My name is Okke (he) and I’m currently studying biodiversity and ecology in Göttingen, Germany.
My peat story starts with my father asking me to join him on a bird excursion – not to a peatland, but still: this trip sparked my passion for birds, and I haven’t stopped looking at landscapes from a bird’s eye view ever since.
When I visited my local peatland for the first time, I was enchanted by the grunting bittern, the butterfly-like lapwings and posing godwits. The birds seemed to ask: Who wouldn’t want to live in an ecosystem so full of freedom and inspiration? I started discovering the world of peatlands and eventually I’ve discovered RE-PEAT and its beautiful, holistic approach to peatland conservation."
Bianca Zordan
Member of the Peat Fest Working Group
"Hi! I am Bianca. I grew up in New York and am currently studying environmental policy and science in Amsterdam. I have been helping restore and understand my neighbourhoods its natural and built environment since I was little, and these experiences carry through to my work and research. I am passionate about connecting science with action, and am particularly interested in naturebased solutions, ecosystem biomimicry, public participation, and pushing traditional language and paradigms. Once I learned about peatlands, I was hooked! I am so proud to be working with this team, and can’t wait to see what we accomplish."
Flavie Bernadou
Member of Bog Academy, Finance and Legal, Peat-Base + Outreach and Events Working Groups
"Hi, nice to peat you!
I’m Flavie. I discovered RE-PEAT some time ago while working on a class assignment that asked me to trace the activities of a sustainable group. By doing so, I found myself being completely bewitched by RE-PEAT’s actions but also by their bubbly and welcoming energy as a group.
I have to confess that I didn’t know much (or anything at all actually) about peatlands before following their actions, but I find myself accumulating more knowledge about them everyday! All thanks to their contagious enthusiasm, passion and holistic approach to the mysteries and beauty of bogs.
All of this motivated me to join RE-PEAT, in the hope of not only learning more, but someday, being able to inspire someone the same way I was inspired by the people in the collective!"
Ananya Jain
Member of Peat Fest, Finance and Legal, Peat-Base + Outreach and Events Working Groups
"Hey everyone!
My name is Ananya and I am currently a student in Amsterdam.
I discovered RE-PEAT by sheer chance, but could not be happier for it. The first time I heard someone mention the term 'peatland,' I had no clue what it meant. In fact, I think I even asked for it to be spelt out because I thought it was a mispronunciation. Now that I have read up more, it seems absolutely bonkers to me that peatlands are such valuable resources in our fight against climate change, yet, up until some weeks ago, I had never heard of them. So, I decided to join the team and (hopefully) string some more people along on my own educational process regarding this mind-BOGgling ecosystem.
Broadening my repertoire of peat puns is, of course, a definite bonus ;)"
Cieran Cotter
Member of Bog Academy Working Group
"You are what you peat.
What drew me to RE-PEAT was because I was surrounded by bogs all my life, while growing up in Knocknagoshel, in the south west of Ireland. I thought I could have a lot to offer because I came from a community living in and around peatlands. I come from a rural community, that relies on peat as a fuel source for home heating. My core aim at RE-PEAT is to figure out a fair way for locals to make the transition away from peat. This will be done through social and political collaboration.
Peatlands are Ireland's last wilderness. They are home to a vast range of ecological wildlife including rare birds and carnivorous plants. To quote a song by Christy Moore, "I'm a bog man, deep down, it's where I come from.""
Kate Foster
Member of the Media and Promotion Working Group
"Hello! I ‘met’ RE-PEAT at the amazing 24-hour long Global Peat Fest in 2020. I was totally bowled over by how this creative and collaborative approach energised how we can think about peatlands.
For me, I was born with my toes in the East Anglian salt marshes in UK. A squidgy muddy feeling shaped my sense of what makes up a good landscape. When I moved to Scotland to study and work, I thought at first that peatbogs were just the bits between the hills. Now I have learnt to enjoy the characteristic Mosses and Flows of the Southern Uplands in their own right. I do still in my bones wait for a saltwater tide to come in over the flatness, but am also learning to see signs of when a bog’s water table is healthy.
My artist’s project https://peatcultures.wordpress.com/ supports a Scottish peatland restora-tion project, Peatland Connections https://www.peatlandconnections.com . My research masters at Edinburgh College of Art focussed on ways of working with peatland issues as an artist. This led to a residency with the Home Turf project in the University of Wageningen to learn about longer term cultural connections between people and peat. Peat is a brilliant frame to explore how Dutch landscapes were transformed and how new ways of relating to wetlands are urgently needed, just like in Scotland.
I love surviving wetlands for what they offer – a lively wildness experienced through the senses, with special plants, creatures and sounds. And I think their cultures (a living heri-tage) need to be nurtured and restored too.
RE-PEAT offers a vitally important energy to help peatland paradigms shift!"
Poppy Bagwell
Member of Peat Fest, Finance and Legal and Peat Base Working Groups
"Every morning back home in Cheshire, I watch the sunrise over the rolling hills of the peak district what once was, much like the whole of England, mostly healthy peatland.
This landscape has been so special to me since I can remember. The conscious realisation of peatlands changed my life in late 2019, when living in Amsterdam. It wasn’t until RE-PEAT began that I realised how vitally important peatlands are in aiding of the environmental, biodiversity and climate crisis. Here I am, finding myself slipping peatlands into every conversation, with anyone I meet.
It baffles me how little peatlands are talked about, and how easily they are ignored, seen as a “barren wasteland”. Like my local bog is Lindow Moss, the find site of the oldest bog body in Britain. Yet still, on the brink of becoming landfill...
The more we do to shift this mentality, the more I learn, and the more we grow together, as an organisation, as a community.
It really is the community buzz around peatlands that gets me so excited, there is so much to share and so much to re-imagine.
That’s what gets me excited about RE-PEAT, we’re here and we’re ready to shake things up. Let’s get everybody thinking, enjoying and respecting the peatlands"
Ireen van Dolderen
Member of Peat-Fest Working Group
"Hello, I’m Ireen! I just graduated as a biomedical sciences student in Amsterdam who recently got swept up into the peat-fanatic-stream through some friends. For a long time, I was convinced that if you wanted to witness beautiful nature, the Netherlands is really not the place to be. However, by learning more and more about the wonders of peat, I’ve started to appreciate the wonderful peatlands around me. I’m a big environmentalist, so when I heard about the incredible carbon-capturing nature of peat and saw the irresistible enthusiasm of the other team members, my decision to join re-peat was easily made. Peatlands have so much potential, and I really believe that by bringing stakeholders together, we can start writing a new and positive chapter for peat history."
Bethany Copsey
Member of the Peat Fest, Finance and Legal, Outreach and Events + Media and Promotion Working Groups
"I just graduated as an Environmental Policy and Science student in Amsterdam, where I wrote my thesis about paludiculture. I am part of RE-PEAT because I believe protecting the living world ('environmental protection') should be a holistic experience that crosses many disciplines, and that celebrates the wonder we can find in nature. I also believe in having spaces where we can explore and express the many emotions that arise in our current situation of climate crisis and ecosystem decline: grief, anger, perseverance, joy. I hope to walk the Hebridean Way very shortly and get a little lost."
Frankie Turk
Member of Bog Academy, Peat Base, Finance and Legal + Media and Promotion Working Groups
"It was the stories that drew me the peatland. Those cross-temporal imprints, containing ancient memories of life and of death. Stories of wet muddy squelchy life. How could this special earth be forgotten, how could it be forgone? Being part of RE-PEAT has opened up interspersing and intersecting dialogues, perspective shifts and an excitement for some of the more underground/under-recognised systems of being."
Mari-Liis Bago
Member of RE-PEAT network
"Hi, I am Mari-Liis, and Estonian girl currently studying Environmental Sciences in University of Vienna, Austria. Almost a quarter of Estonia is covered in peatlands and I grew up surrounded by their beauty. I have enjoyed sunrises, sunsets, long walks and midsummer night concerts there.
I still remember sitting in my first lecture of peatlands, learning about their importance and thinking to myself how did I not know about it before! In this moment I finally figured out the path I wanted to take in my studies. Soon after I started working on my master thesis and from there on, my appreciation, interest and love for peatlands has been flourishing.
I joined RE-PEAT, because I feel there is an urgent need to educate people about peatlands and how relevant they are in combating climate change. I am thrilled to be a part of such a driven group of young people, aiming to make a difference on how we see and treat these ecological treasures."
Jamie Walker
Member of RE-PEAT network
"My name is Jamie (he/him) and I am currently at studying Biology at Oxford University. I first became aware of peatlands around September 2019 when I wasvolunteering at a nature reserve near me. The group leader tole me that the place we were walking over on the boardwalk was a valley mire. “Like a bog, yes!” he said. I had been over that boardwalk hundreds of times with my family and never knew to attach the name peatland to the place. A romp through google when I got home began to make me aware of the value of peatlands. Howfunny that around the same time my eyes were opened to the peatland quietly lying a mile away from me, a group of Amsterdam-based students were starting RE-PEAT. The 24 hour PeatFest in March enchanted me to peatlands and now I am pleased to be helping wherever I can with RE-PEAT."
Lukas Fraser
Member of RE-PEAT network
"Hello! I’m Lukas and I have a very interdisciplinary and all-encompassing love for peatlands which extends from a deep passion for ecology as a wider subject. I have an unhealthy obsession with fungi and fermentation, and my background is rooted in art and music, which manages to overflow into almost everything I do.
I’m currently doing a masters in environment and sustainability and I’ve chosen to research the restoration of the afforested peatlands of Scotland’s Flow Country for my thesis, but my love for peatlands stems from a very romantic interest in forests, which I soon learned are a huge threat to many ecosystems which should naturally remain open, alongside the thousands of species that thrive in them. Indeed, in this sense I’ve experienced my own peatland paradigm shift which has left me with no choice but to study peatlands and spread the word on their importance for biodiversity, climate and culture.
I am a true believer in symbiosis and ecosystems and their extension beyond biology into something more cosmic and poetic. For me, peatlands are deeply profound in this regard."
Puneet Muthreja
Member of RE-PEAT network
"I am Puneet Muthreja, did my Undergrad in Bachelors in commerce (Honours) degree from University of Delhi back in India. After completing my degree, I worked for 6 years in Corporate set-ups with majorly in HR Consulting, and with the giant-start-ups organisations and engaging with the CSR's domain as well. Apart from that, I am a sportsperson, played cricket for my state back in India and pursuing my sport in one of the prestigious clubs in the UK as well. I recently did my masters in International Development from University of East Anglia. Working for Peatlands is one of the best thing that has happened because I have been chasing this organisation to work for in the past 6 months and glad to be here, given an opportunity to work as an Intern and hopefully with a long term commitment with the Peatlands. I am also an animal lover, quite interested in Organic farming and would love to work to protect the wildlife."
Carolina Maienza
Member of RE-PEAT Network
"I got involved with RE-PEAT after I found out about the impact that draining peatlands can have on the environment and I thought it was too much of a “big issue” for me to let it pass by without doing anything about it. So, when some friends of mine had the idea of starting the group, I immediately got on board with the project even though I didn’t know so much about the topic. After that I got to learn more about peatlands and I realised that they are actually quite cool! I don’t see myself as a very “sciency” person, nor I did any studies in environmental science, but I must say that now I am definitely fascinated and attracted to these wet carbon rich lands!
What I find the most fascinating about them –beside their amazing role as carbon sinks and natural barriers – it is their unique and almost mystical character. Having graduated from a bachelor in social sciences, I am quite interested in the cultural and social value that certain landscapes and environments can carry, and I believe that peatlands carry an amazing socio-cultural baggage with them that is often hidden in many old rural traditional practices. If I could have a “peaty” superpower, I would like to be able to literally “dive” into the peatland as if it was a pool of water and to be able to go through and experience its thousands of years of history stored into the many layers of peat."
Deirdre Lane
Member of RE-PEAT network
"As a bog women and peat saving advocate when I discovered the 24 hours of the PeatFest that awesome, novel event it was such an exhilarating personal thrill I too became a cog in the RePeat vision.
When I was 11 my father bought land in the Bog Of Allen once home to the Fianna warriors. It became our play place each summer. Between footing and drawing home our turf, and fleeing midgees, the hours flew by finding frogs and dodging turf sods being flung. The first bite of a midge would raise your eyes from the brown peat ground to the blue, rapidly greying sky, as veils of children eating midgees emerged from the bog. Boy did they love little redheads with rapidly reddening swelling eyes where the brutes would munch on the soft pockets nearest your eyeballs and speckle your revealed slithers of skin to pink. The crease behind your knees where your long socks met your skirt would itch from where they gorged on your flesh and feasted.
We did not know then what we now know about the role of bogs. For my 40th birthday my father gifted me my woodland and the bit of bog I preserve, a tranche of that wilderness. Am a part of RePeat to share the joys of bogs, our lungs, and our carbon sinks to be salvaged and restored. Let bogs be bogs and do their jobs. My job in global commodity trading markets includes Carbon trading markets. I urge and nudge parties to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring and it is "extremely likely that human-made CO 2 emissions have predominantly caused it."as stated since the 1992 KYOTO protocols from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Greta Thunberg says No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference as an encounter with a bog dwelling midge bears testimony to. We can help their habitats with actions no matter how small and work to transform livelihoods once derived from bog destruction on a path towards a green Just transition world, so let's crack on."
Lily Douglas-Pennant
Member of RE-PEAT network
"During my last years at school, I took an interest in peatlands as it continued to pop up as an epic yet greatly understated landscape. I didn’t really understand why we weren’t all talking about peatlands more. I then came to Amsterdam and within the first few weeks of being here I came across some peat fanatics and it was a combination of their inspiring energy and goals for re-peat as a group that drew me to the cult, sorry I meant re-peat.
As a someone who is wholly dedicated to protecting and restoring our beautiful earth, it is the ability of peatlands to absorb and store all that carbon and methane gas I really find incredible; just wow. Peatlands are epic."
Tanya Lippmann
Member of RE-PEAT network
"Hey there!
I’m Tanya. I’m a PhD candidate investigating the greenhouse gas fluxes in peatlands. I grew up in Western Sydney, Australia. I studied climate science in my undergraduate but barely knew what a peatland was until I had graduated and was working as a Research Assistant. One day I was asked to interpret a climate record from an old whaling station on the peat covered sub-antarctic Island of South Georgia and the rest is history (stored in the peat, I guess). Peatlands play a critical role in the carbon cycle and I find it intriguing to look at how we, as humans, (choose your own:) care/treat/exploit/interact with them. Peatlands are a humble ecosystem where biotic matter slowly transforms into abiotic matter; solids into gases and much much much more. Like the Re-Peat collective, peatlands have a deep core. And like the Re-Peat collective, this means there is always more to explore! I spend my days writing a site-specific process-based model that simulates the CO2 and CH4 fluxes in peatlands. I’ve recently introduced plant functional types into the model to investigate the role of vegetation in the greenhouse gas fluxes of peatlands. I hope to use the model to help farmers understand their own role (or role of their own farmland) in the global carbon cycle."
Jacqueline Hereema
Member of RE-PEAT network
"Hi, I am proud to engage with this amazing RE-PEAT Collective!
I am Dutch conceptual artist, curator and work with notions of time, nature-culture, landscapes, and matter to enhance public and professional climate-consciousness. I am fascinated by peat as it has a special social, spatial and ecological ‘worldmaking’ connotation in the Netherlands. During centuries of peat extraction of the natural peat land a peat colonial landscape emerged. I recently explored the genesis of a human-made peatscape in a park in Amsterdam. I wonder if we are aware of the timescale of peat and how we can learn to engage in a more affectionate and reciprocal relationship with soil?"
Ismail Laghmiri
Member of RE-PEAT network
"I study pedagogy and practice the learned lessons by holding workshops and field trips on sustainability. In my spare time, I like to engage with NGOs and foundations that are at the forefront of protecting the environment.
Our use of fossil fuels generates greenhouse gasses, that results in higher temperature. Logging and the drainage of wetlands act as a catalyst for the changing climate. Peatlands cover 3% of the earth's surface, compared to trees that cover 30%, yet they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests (www.unenvironment.org). It takes thousands of years to form a delicate peatland ecosystem, and it can be destroyed within a fraction of that time by humankind. This is one of the reasons why I joined this beautiful initiative RE-PEAT. People need to become more aware of their surroundings and get to know about the importance of peatlands. Garden centers need to inform consumers about the origin of the soil and offer alternatives to peat soil.
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." Hellen Keller
Swantje Furtak
Member of RE-PEAT network
"There is this small library in Greifswald. The huge table in the middle is always covered under maps of wetlands in Mecklenburg-Western-Pomerania. Shelves are covering every wall. And each book, being sorted by content, is about peatlands.
There is a man sitting in front of the window. It is pitch-black outside of the room, so that you can see the reflection of the chandelier in the window glass. Laughter is filling the room. The students love his Dutch. It was him who has built up this library and now, every Wednesday evening, he organizes Peatland-nights to speak about our wetlands.
There are those small moments in life that change you to an extend you would have never expected. That ignite you with a spark and suddenly there is a flame burning inside of you. This evening in the Peatland library was such a moment for me. From that night on I saw Greifswald, Germany, maybe even the world differently."
Amara den Hollander
Member of RE-PEAT network
"Peat was a new and recent discovery for me. When I was first told of the massive role Peatland plays in climate regulation it took me a while to grasp the extent of it. How can there be this vital ecosystem that so few people know about? Why aren't we talking about it and singing in the street, have you heard of peat?
I grew up surrounded by nature in a place that 5o years before had been a barren piece of land. Chipmunks and snakes would come for regular morning visits and we would spend many afternoons up in trees. Nature has an amazing healing capacity. I think when tackling Climate Change there are a lot of overly anthropocentric tech guided solutions but such a big part of the solution is protecting the nature we still have and supporting the natural self-restoring abilities of the Earth. I love the holistic approach that Re-Peat takes and am looking forward for what's to come."
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