New responsibilities of agriculture: structural differences in stakeholder networks and intentions towards climate change abatement strategies in peatland

Agriculture is required to fulfil the needs and wants of society in a variety of fields: food supply, environmental services, landscape preservation and finally: climate mitigation. Using the example of land-use change in peatland in order to create possibilities for greenhouse-gas reduction, a survey about the intentions and future expectations of stakeholders was undertaken. The underlying network structure of these stakeholders in three representative peatland areas of Germany was determined and compared. The results show that considerable differences exist in the degree of knowledge about climate change and in the willingness to cooperate. Depending on the area studied, the most influential political entities are different and thus require different strategies for agenda setting. From the study it can be concluded, that the realisation of a political or societal goal, for example greenhouse-gas reduction, relies largely on the intentions among the stakeholders and structural differences in the stakeholder networks. Our example has shown that for these reasons, land-use change for climate protective reasons will be supported more in the study-area in the South of Germany in comparison to the case in the eastern part.