Photo: Sally Nex/Peat-free Partnership
By Alison Murphy, Peat-free Partnership
This Bog Day, we want to do more than celebrate peatlands. We want to give them a voice.
Peatlands have been continuously dug up for peat to be used in horticulture for years. If you’re not aware of it, it’s likely that peat is in your garden, your houseplants, and was probably even used to grow some of the vegetables in your kitchen right now. But the use of peat for these purposes has caused severe damage to our environment and will continue to do so until we stop extracting peat.
To celebrate Bog Day, we would like to ask you to take action to protect our precious peatlands. Here are some things that you can do to help:
Photo: Sally Nex/Peat-free Partnership
Peat bogs are unique ecosystems that support amazing biodiversity. These wetland habitats make up around 10% of the UK land area and are extremely valuable in helping to tackle climate change due to their amazing capability for carbon storage. This is one of the features of bogs that make them so special: the acidic and waterlogged condition of peatland habitats stops dead plant material from decaying completely. This means that carbon that has been produced through photosynthesis by these plants are not released into the atmosphere. Instead, it is all compacted down and turns into the bog’s soil- peat!
It is estimated that over 3 billion tonnes of carbon is stored by UK peatlands alone. However, the process of creating peat and storing carbon takes a long time. Generally, peat grows at a rate of 1mm per year. If you think about it, that means that digging up just a metre of peat can release a thousand years’ worth of stored carbon that would have otherwise stayed in the ground.
Carbon storage isn’t all that peatlands are good for. Sphagnum moss, the moss that lends its water retentive qualities to producing peat, makes use of those same qualities to soak up excess water. Because of this, when peatlands are in good condition, they are fantastic at preventing flooding. They also act as natural filters for pollution in our water supplies.
The unique features of peat bogs make them host to a number of specialist species- sphagnum moss being one. Other species which rely on peatland’s wet and acidic composition include carnivorous plants such as sundews (Drosera spp.) and invertebrates like the bog hoverfly (Eristalis cryptarum). These species (and many others!) can be put under significant threat if peatlands are destroyed. If you want to read more about endangered peatland species, click here to read our Endangered Species Day blog written by Clare Simm from the IUCN UK Peatland Programme.
Photo: Joshua Copping
Peatlands face constant threat for multiple reasons, a key issue being the extraction of peat for use in horticulture. According to the HTA Growing Media Monitor report, the UK’s horticultural industry got through 900 cubic metres of peat in 2022 alone. Just imagine the amount of carbon dioxide that’s releasing into our atmosphere- The Wildlife Trusts puts their estimate at hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually.
It’s a common misconception that peat is already banned in horticulture because discussions around the topic have been ongoing in the UK government for years now. It is important to be aware that the compost that you buy for your garden might not be peat-free. In fact, if it doesn’t have “peat-free” clearly labelled on the packaging, the product most likely contains at least some peat.
Photo: Alison Murphy/Peat-free Partnership
Thankfully, there are ongoing efforts to protect these wonderful habitats. In fact, the Flow Country was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List just this week! This is a huge win for peatlands as it is the very first peatland site ever to achieve this status, putting peatlands on the map and highlighting their importance to the rest of the world.
There are currently millions of pounds going into peatland restoration and protection. While these efforts could be truly worthwhile, extensive funding for these projects becomes almost redundant if we continue to allow the extraction of peat for use in horticulture. If we want to truly help our peatlands, we need to go peat-free now. A sustainable future for gardening and horticulture is in sight- we just need to do our part to get there.
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