Saving the small things that run the planetPeatlands (also called peat bogs) are incredibly important habitats. They regulate our climate, help to manage the quality and flow of water, and they are home to thousands of species of plants and animals.
Yet, peatlands have endured immense damage around the globe through the extraction of material for fuel and horticulture, as well as draining for land use in agriculture. Since the start of the 19th century, the area of undisturbed lowland raised bog in the UK has declined from around 95,000 hectares to around 6,000 hectares – a loss of 94%!
Since 2003, Buglife has actively campaigned to save important peatland sites, like Aucheninnes Moss, and restored bogs in central Scotland. To date, Buglife has helped to restore more than 350 hectares of peatland in Scotland.
Peatland, such as peat bogs, are ancient habitats, formed over thousands of years by the growth and decay of damp-loving Sphagnum mosses. This is an incredibly slow process. As little as 1mm of peat is formed in a year, and with the depth of some bogs exceeding 9 metres, they have taken over 9,000 years to form.
Peat bogs are home to many rare and threatened invertebrates. The Bog Sun-jumper Spider (Heliophanus dampfi) lives in Sphagnum moss tussocks and is known from only five sites in central Scotland (Flanders Moss, Ochtertyre, Dunmore Moss, Wester Moss and Letham Moss) and Cors Foncho in western Wales. The call of the Bog Bush Cricket (Metrioptera brachyptera) can be heard on peatlands across England and Wales, and as far north as Aucheninnes Moss in the south of Scotland. In the peaty pools on the bog, you can find the larvae of the Window-winged Sedge (Hagenella clathrata) and the White-faced Darter (Leucorrhinia dubia). And amongst the cottongrass you may see the glint of the metallic sheen of the Bog Reed Beetle (Plateumaris discolor).
Alongside, the plant and animal species that peat bogs support, peatlands are estimated to hold up to one third of the Earth’s terrestrial carbon, despite only covering about 3% of the world’s surface. Peat soils contain almost 25 times as much carbon as all other soils in the UK. In Scotland, the carbon stored in these soils is equivalent to over 180 years of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions at current emission rates (as of 2022). Healthy peatlands keep carbon locked up and can continue to absorb more carbon.
Humans have used peat for centuries. A major use of peat is in horticulture. Amateur gardening accounts for 69% of peat use in the UK. We currently use around three billion litres of peat every year in our gardens, with around a third of this peat coming from British bogs. The rest being imported from Ireland and elsewhere in Europe.
Peat is dried to be used as fuel. In the far north of Scotland and islands, it’s used for cooking and domestic heating, with households cutting and drying sods of peat each year. In Ireland, peat was harvested on an industrial scale to burn in power stations to generate electricity, which was phased out in 2020.
It has also been common practise to drain peat bogs to support agricultural expansion. Areas of peatland have become new pastures for cattle, fields for crops and sites used by industries such as forestry.
Damaged peatlands no longer act as carbon sink and increasingly emit carbon over time, leading to an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a worsening of the effects of climate change.
Buglife is a member of the Peat-free Partnership, which aims to end the commercial trade in peat across the UK. Find out more about the partnership here.
The best thing that we can do is to protect our remaining peat bogs. On sites that have already been damaged, we need to focus on restoring peat-forming habitat to ensure that the bog remains as a long-term carbon sink and significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Without intervention and restoration, we risk losing more unique peatland wildlife as the bogs continue to dry out as well as an important carbon sink.
(2019-ongoing)
(2014-2018)
(2003-2009)
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