Cool Kids For A Cool Climate

 

Bogged Off

Peatlands are the ultimate carbon store. They can lock up carbon for thousands and thousands of years. It is estimated that peatlands contain 5,000 tonnes of carbon per hectare and absorb carbon from the air at 0.7 tonnes per hectare per year. They will produce methane (marsh gas) though which is also a greenhouse gas.

The carniverous Sundew plant

Peat bogs are very important as carbon sinks (stores) because they have the potential to store that carbon forever. Peat (in an active, growing bog) does not decompose because of the wet, airless, acidic conditions and the sphagnum moss keeps on growing, raising the level of the bog.

They are also fantastic places for wildlife and are home to many rare and endangered species. Thorne Moors in South Yorkshire is said to contain over 3,000 different species of insect alone.

Worldwide peat bogs are under threat. Many are drained to be 'improved' for farming or forestry. Some are 'milled' producing peat for horticultural use and others suffer pressure from development or erosion from overgrazing or other use. The peat bogs could also now be at risk from climate change - if rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns mean that the peat bogs start to dry out.

The problem is peat, once dead and dried, will start to decompose, releasing the carbon dioxide that had been stored in the bog. Climate change - dry peat bogs - more greenhouse gases - increased climate change.

To compound the problem, dried out peat bogs are a huge fire risk. Where the peatlands have become covered with trees this is especially true. Fires in peat bogs are very difficult to put out and can burn for months underground. These fires of course accelerate the return to the atmosphere of the stored carbon and greatly increase climate change.

So it is very important that our peat bogs are protected, not just for the wildlife that lives on them, but for their importance as carbon stores.

In South Yorkshire, Thorne & Hatfield Moors has been extensively mined for peat (to be sold as a growing medium to gardeners). The good news is that in 2004 (at a cost of £17 million) Hatfield Moors is to be handed back to the government's English Nature (Thorne Moors has already been handed over). They intend to restore the moors to living, active peat bogs as part of the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve.

What Can You Do To Protect Peat Bogs?

Do NOT use peat in your garden and make sure that all plants you buy have not been grown in peat.

Get your local Council to sign the Peat Charter to make sure that peat is not used in local parks etc.

Look out for and object to any development plans which may damage your local peat bogs.

Where peat bogs are being managed for nature conservation, volunteer your time to help with management work. To volunteer for management work on Thorne & Hatfield Moors contact Rachel Davies

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