Since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Poland and Finland have increasingly explored the restoration of wetlands and natural border terrain as a way to strengthen both defence and climate resilience. These two countries, which share borders with Russia and Russian ally Belarus, seek to implement EU Commissioner for the Environment Jessika Roswall's suggestion to treat nature as a defence asset. Focusing on rewilding techniques to boost defence infrastructure indicates intertwined national and climate security for these states on Europe’s eastern flank.
In both Poland and Finland, rewilding techniques for security center around wetlands and peatlands near their borders. Many of the border wetlands are peatlands or bogs, where waterlogged conditions allow partially decomposed plant matter to accumulate into carbon-rich soil known as peat. These peatlands act as effective carbon sinks, absorbing excess CO2, a key dimension for their role in Europe’s climate change policy. However, peatlands have been threatened by drainage that comes from agricultural demands for land. EU countries reported 124 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution from drained peatlands in 2022, close to the annual emissions of the Netherlands.
From a defence perspective, waterlogged peatlands can make movement difficult for troops, military trucks and tanks. Peatland geography has limited troop mobility throughout European history, with Finland’s treacherous swamps entrapping Soviets in the 1940s, to the marshes north of Kyiv that halted military operations in both World Wars. While restoring border wetlands would not replace conventional defence, it could make some areas harder to cross and channel military movement into narrower, more defensible corridors.
Along peatland-rich Eastern European borderlands, restoration projects have been set in motion. Poland’s Eastern Shield fortification project, launched in 2024, aims to restore wetlands and forests for both climate and national security.
EU Commissioner for the Environment Jessika Roswall has promoted rewilding borders as a security decision that hinders invasion and fortifies natural defences. Fortifying natural borders in the form of trees, bushes, and wetlands around national perimeters can make it harder for people and tanks to cross into state lines. Treating nature as a defence asset, Roswall advocates, incorporates broader notions of security that include food and water sovereignty. Roswall's arguments call for a consideration of environmental degradation, including wetland drainage, to be understood not only as an ecological problem but also as a national security risk.
Source: commonspace.eu with The Guardian and Politico
