Protect Peatlands Worldwide
Support the Venice Agreement Gathering at Lake Victoria, Kenya (2-5 June 2026)
Help East African & international peatland custodians, scientists, artists, and Indigenous leaders mobilize to protect one of Earth’s most vital ecosystems.
In June 2026, peatland guardians from across the world will gather in the papyrus wetlands of Lake Victoria, Kenya, for the Third Global Workshop of the Venice Agreement for Peatlands (VA), coinciding with World Peatlands Day (June 2nd).
The Venice Agreement for Peatlands is a global, grassroots initiative reimagining how peatlands are protected. Hosted with Ecofinder Kenya and international partners including the Michael Succow Foundation, partner in the Greifswald Mire Center, WCS Chile, RE-PEAT, and the Global Peatlands Initiative, this gathering will bring together a transdisciplinary community of scientists, artists, Indigenous leaders, community organisers, conservationists, and policymakers.
Together we will share knowledge, develop collaborative strategies, and strengthen global networks dedicated to peatland protection and restoration.
We need your support to make this gathering possible.
Participants will collaborate through:
🌿 Workshops and knowledge exchanges
🎨 Artistic programmes and cultural gatherings
🧭 Field visits to papyrus wetlands
🌍 Community-led discussions on peatland governance
Together we will develop a “Living Menu of How-Tos” – practical strategies for:
🌱 Peatland restoration
🤝 Community stewardship
🌍 Climate action
📜 Policy innovation
🎨 Cultural engagement with peatlands
Before the main gathering, “Underground Workshops” will take place in peatlands across the world, connecting local communities through a global network of peatland care.
To make this international gathering possible, we need to raise funds to support:
🌿 Local community involvement and peatland work
🏡 Accommodation and hosting for participants in Kisumu
🗣 Translation and interpretation to ensure multilingual access
📚 Documentation and communication to share knowledge globally
Your contribution will help bring together people who are directly caring for peatlands on the ground.
Our fundraising goal is €4,000. Reaching this amount will allow the workshop to go ahead and help cover essential costs and to support peatland custodians working to protect Dunga Swamp and Yala Swamp - the peatlands at Lake Victoria that host the global gathering.
You are very welcome to donate any amount that feels right to you. Every contribution, big or small, helps make this gathering possible. Below are some suggested donation amounts, each accompanied by a small digital gift from the peatland world as a thank-you for your support.
Peatlands cover only 3% of the Earth's land surface, yet they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined.
They are essential for:
🌍 Climate stability
🦋 Biodiversity
💧 Water regulation
🌱 Community livelihoods
🪶 Cultural and spiritual heritage
Yet peatlands are disappearing rapidly due to drainage, burning, agriculture, and development. Protecting them is one of the most powerful actions we can take for the climate.
But peatlands are more than carbon sinks. They are living ecosystems, ancient archives of ecological memory, and homes to human and more-than-human communities.
The Venice Agreement is a living, breathing community tool for transdisciplinary peatland conservation. It is a medium of connection, a practice of coming together across differences. Co-created by artists, scientists, Indigenous leaders, policy makers, and land stewards, it weaves together diverse knowledge and experiences in service of local action with global resonance.
It invites us to reimagine conservation as a shared responsibility, one rooted not only in ecological data, but also in ancestral memory, spiritual connection, and cultural continuity. It shifts the center of gravity away from top-down mandates, toward a bottom-up, place-based ecology of care.
To find out more about our work, visit: https://theveniceagreement.net/index.html
The 2026 workshop will take place in the papyrus wetlands of Lake Victoria, one of the world’s largest freshwater lake systems and a critical peat-forming ecosystem shared by Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.
These wetlands:
🌱 Store carbon
💧 Filter water
🐟 Support fisheries
🏘 Provide livelihoods
🦋 Sustain unique biodiversity
Yet they face increasing pressures from drainage, overharvesting, burning, and land conversion.
This gathering will centre African peatlands and their custodians, supporting local stewardship while strengthening international solidarity.
Your donations will primarily be used for the ‘Venice Agreement Kisumu’ project. Please understand that, in a few isolated cases, certain projects may, for practical reasons, no longer be able to be implemented as originally envisaged following the appeal for donations. In such cases, the Michael Succow Foundation will use the donation for related projects that align as closely as possible with your motivation for donating and serve a similar purpose. In any case, the donation will be used to support the charitable purposes of the Michael Succow Foundation for Science and Research, Nature and Environmental Protection, Education, and Public and Professional Training.
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rivers of life,
biodiversity.
Ticking, tickling, alive,
murmuring, sensitive, sensual.
Peatlands are memory.
Flowing and folding into deep dark matter
they hold our future.
Peatlands are ancestors.
One and indivisible,
thumping
like a beating heart
Lene Schwarz
Fundraising & Spendenbetreuung
Tel +49 3834 83542 29