UK warned to ‘get serious’ about protecting peatland to combat climate crisis

The UK must “get serious” about protecting and restoring carbon-rich peatlands such as The Fens as part of efforts to tackle climate emissions, it has been warned.

Experts behind a study which looked at how habitats can help tackle the nature and climate crises, said restoring the UK’s damaged peatlands was a top priority to halt emissions from the “giant security vaults full of carbon”.

That could involve a switch to “wet farming”, which involves growing different crops that thrive in waterlogged soils, halting and reversing peat drainage, and ending the burning of blanket bogs to protect the carbon-storing habitats.

Dr Christian Dunn, of Bangor University, also urged people to stop buying peat-based compost to halt the destruction of peatland, and said “it’s time to love our bogs” which are fantastic habitats and powerhouses for carbon storage.

The report on “nature-based solutions” from the British Ecological Society also suggested that Britons should reduce how much meat and dairy they eat to make space for tree planting on low-quality grazing land.

Increasing woodland cover across the UK can make a significant impact as a natural solution to tackle climate change over time, as forests absorb and store carbon as they grow.

But tree planting should avoid peatland, other important conservation sites and productive agricultural land, and focus instead on poor-quality grazing land in the uplands – which will mean less space for livestock, the report said.

So people would need to reduce how much meat and dairy they eat, to avoid shifting the impact of livestock production abroad where tropical forests could be cut down to make space for ranching or growing animal feed.

The report looked at the potential across habitats such as woodlands, peatlands, saltmarshes, grasslands and seagrass meadows to act as “nature-based solutions” for climate change, by absorbing carbon and protecting against impacts such as sea level rises, at the same time as boosting wildlife.

But the report warned they were not a “panacea” for meeting the UK’s goal to cut emissions to net zero by 2050, and cannot be seen as a substitute for the significant emissions cuts across other sectors that are needed to meet the goal.

It highlighted UK peatlands, which range from upland moors to productive agricultural land in East Anglia’s fens, as a key priority because they contain around three billion tonnes of carbon – around three times what forests store.

They are also an important home to wildlife, and provide clean water, access to wild habitats, and are even a window into the past with well preserved archaeological finds and evidence they were once highly revered – with votive offerings placed in the landscape.

But today four fifths of the 2.6 million hectares of peat in the UK are in a poor condition, and they emit 23 million tonnes of emissions a year as a result of drainage and degradation – equivalent to around 5% of UK emissions.

Restoring peatlands can reduce and eventually halt these emissions but will involve measures including blocking up drains, halting burning on peat, and encouraging people not to buy peat compost.

The landscape can also be protected by wet farming of products such as reeds or sphagnum moss, raising the water table on conventional agriculture, and carbon farming – where its value as a carbon store is paid for.

Dr Dunn, who was lead author of the peatlands chapter, said: “If the UK is serious about cutting its carbon emissions, it must get serious about its peatlands.

“They are giant security vaults full of carbon but unfortunately these carbon vaults can be broken into, the doors can be blown off and when that happens the carbon is released.

“We have damaged so much of these carbon vaults, we’ve damaged so much of our peatlands in the UK.”

And he urged: “It’s time to love our bogs. They’re fantastic habitats and they are powerhouses when it comes to carbon storage.”

There is scope to meet the Government’s ambitions for new tree planting on low-quality upland grazing land, and there is also room for pockets of trees in arable landscapes, field margins and along streams, the experts said.

Professor David Coomes, of University of Cambridge and lead author of the woodlands chapter, said: “For large-scale tree planting to be effective in capturing carbon, we will need to avoid species-rich grasslands, peat and other organic soils.

“Our focus should instead be on areas of low-quality grassland.

“However, this will reduce the UK’s capacity to produce meat and dairy, meaning a shift in our diets would be needed to avoid importing more of these products and offshoring our carbon footprint elsewhere.”

The report also calls for more saltmarshes, conserving ancient woodlands, protecting and re-establishing hedgerows and species-rich grasslands, new public and private funding to incentivise agroforestry, and boosting green space in cities.