Devastating climate impact of using peat in UK horticulture revealed New analysis by the Wildlife Trusts has calculated the shocking impacts of extracting peat for use in horticulture – so we are calling on everyone to support an immediate ban in the damaging practice.
Peat extraction devastated Little Woolden Moss - credit Lancashire Wildlife Trust
• Policy failure to stop peat extraction has caused up to 31 million tonnes of CO2 to be released since 1990 • Peat extracted for horticulture in 2020 alone could release up to 880,000 tonnes of CO2 – equivalent in emissions to driving to the moon and back 4,600 times • Waiting another two years until 2024 to ban peat use could add more than 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 to our atmosphere – roughly equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 214,000 UK residents
peat was left, and the site had been totally stripped of all plant and animal life. The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside is working hard to breathe life back into this precious peatland, healing the scars that peat extraction left. The campaign to stop peat extraction took off in the 1990s but only now are the UK and Welsh Governments conducting a public consultation on ending the use of peat in the retail sector in England and Wales by 2024. The Wildlife Trusts believe we cannot wait this long.
he analysis estimates that as much as 31 million tonnes of CO2 could have been released into the atmosphere since 1990, as a direct result of using peat in gardening, and its use by professional growers of fruit, vegetables, and plants.
As well as analysing the impacts of peat extraction in the UK, The Wildlife Trusts found that the UK ‘offshores’ most of its peatland emissions and damage to wildlife to the countries who dig peat up to sell it in the UK. Currently, emissions from these imports are not counted in the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions figures.
Little Woolden Moss in Greater Manchester, was still being subject to peat extraction for horticulture until as recently as 2017. In some areas barely 50cm of the once almost 8m of
Despite thirty years of campaigning against extraction and increased public outcry, peat continues to be sold in vast quantities for amateur and professional horticultural use,
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with huge consequences for nature and climate. Industry progress towards peatfree alternatives has been slow and inconsistent, and between 2018-19 peat consumption in the UK declined by just 2.3 per cent, before rapidly increasing by 9 per cent as lockdown drove more people to buy compost for gardening. On average, annual UK peat sales would fill 29,000 large shipping containers and could release up to 850,000 tonnes of CO2. In 2020 alone, nearly 900,000 cubic metres of peat were extracted from UK soils, with a further 1.4 million cubic metres of peat imported from Ireland and the rest of Europe. A total of just over 2.29 million cubic metres of peat were dug up to be sold in the UK market in 2020, with a small quantity also being exported to other countries. If peat is left undisturbed – in bogs, not bags – this quantity of peat could have stored approximately 238,000 tonnes of carbon for millennia
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