PEAT-FREE CAMPAIGN LAUNCHES TO SAVE OUR PEATLANDS AND FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
The large heath butterfly is a peatland specialist - by Andy Hankinson
Gardeners are being told to go peat-free as the climate and wildlife crisis lands in our flower beds and hanging baskets.
T
hree million litres of peat are used by the UK horticulture industry every year, and The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside is calling on everyone to go peat-free in their gardens and window boxes and help save our remaining peatlands.
Little Woolden Moss on the border of Salford and Warrington was being commercially extracted for peat until as recently as 2017. This left it a black, desiccated, desolate wasteland, releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. All to fill cheap bags of garden compost and grow the plants that you buy in the garden centre. The Wildlife Trust, which owns the moss, is telling gardeners that this must change and that change begins with everyone taking more care when buying compost and plants for
Peat extraction-scarred Little Woolden Moss by Alan Wright (7)
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their homes and gardens, and to sign up to the peat-free pledge www.wildlifetrusts.org/ pledge-peat-free Sarah Johnson, Lancashire Peatlands Initiative Project Manager, said, “Switching to 100 per cent peat-free compost and buying plants from dedicated peat-free growers is one of the simplest and most effective ways that anyone can help to fight climate change and our looming biodiversity crisis.”
Peat extraction-scarred Little Woolden Moss by Alan Wright (1)
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