Stepping into the quagmire: The challenges and opportunities of interdisciplinary peatland science

Peatlands around the world are important landscapes not only for their carbon storage and unique flora and fauna, but also for their social, economic, and cultural importance for human communities. From the arctic to the tropics, peatlands are increasingly being recognized as complex social-ecological systems. Interdisciplinary approaches are therefore increasingly being proposed as a means of exploring these systems, their threats and future management. Here we draw on our experiences of two different interdisciplinary projects which both aimed to inform more effective peatland management. The first was an interdisciplinary PhD which explored tropical peat-swamp fish and fishing livelihoods, and the second is a larger ongoing international project exploring the tropical peatland fires in Indonesia. In our comparison of these projects, we discuss the challenges and opportunities that we have encountered in our attempts to plan and perform interdisciplinary research. This includes dealing with the uncertainties that interdisciplinary research brings, its limitations, challenges in integrating social and natural science methodologies, finding commonalities and a shared language across disciplines, and in writing and publishing from interdisciplinary projects. We also discuss project outputs, and the rationale for adopting interdisciplinary perspectives to inform peatland policy and management. From our experiences, we provide thoughts on where interdisciplinary research and collaborations may provide the greatest benefits and achieve the best progress in peatland science.