Peatland

 © Kent Mason

Peatland restoration for water, climate, and biodiversity benefits

Peatland Restoration

United Kingdom, United Kingdom

Peatland Restoration
Primary Implementer
IUCN UK
United Kingdom
Nature-based Solutions
Peatland Restoration 

The IUCN UK Peatland Programme was set up in 2009 to promote peatland restoration in the UK through partnerships, science, policy and practice. This programme has several functions: informing policy and legislation at both regional and national levels; advocating for peatlands and their value to decision makers and the public; identifying financing opportunities for restoration on the ground; and developing restoration and management good practices. The programme is hosted by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and is overseen by a collective partnership that includes government institutions, conservation NGOs and academia (Defra, Moors for the Future Partnership, National Trust for Scotland, Natural England, North Pennines AONB Partnership, RSPB, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Scottish National Heritage, University of East London and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust).

Field

Morgan Heim

Challenges: Peatland is extremely important for carbon storage and water management. Globally, peatland contains more than twice the carbon stored in all forests in the world and is important for water regulation. The UK is rich in peatland: it is home to over 2million hectares of peatland (2.6 million hectares of deep peat), and 13 percent of the world’s blanket bogs. Blanket bog is a type of peatland where peat blankets the land surface due to poor surface drainage in wet, cool climates, which is encountered particularly in the Northern hemisphere. To deliver its important functions, peat must be wet. However, for centuries peat and its vegetation have been cultivated, drained and degraded. Dry peat easily erodes and washes away, represents a fire hazard and emits a significant amount of greenhouse gas. At least 80 percent of peat bogs in the UK are currently degraded. Such degradation reduces peat bogs’ ability to purify water and can lead to water discolouration, which is very hard to address through existing water treatment techniques. Given that 70 percent of UK drinking water comes from upland catchments dominated by peat bog, the restoration and conservation of these ecosystems is paramount. 

Financing

While the UK has committed to the conservation and restoration of peatlands and the methods and solutions used have been tested and proven effective, a key constraint is securing adequate finance on a long-term basis. Programme targets are ambitious and require significant upfront funding, from diverse sources, in order to be achieved. In 2016, IUCN estimated that the restoration of the peatland habitat in the UK (not including maintenance) would require mobilising GBP 500 million over the following 10 years. Current public funding is limited and competitive; private finance will be key to reaching the programme’s goals. Using voluntary carbon markets could be a viable means to source private funding.  

The IUCN Peatland Programme has developed a Peatland Code to enable this approach: it is a voluntary standard for UK peatland projects wishing to market the climate benefit of restoration. It sets out best practice requirements, including a standard method of quantification which will ensure buyers that the climate benefits arising from peatland restoration projects are real, quantifiable, additional and permanent. Some limited investments have already been made through that route— for example, at Heathrow Airport, looking to offset its carbon footprint. However, this approach calls for bilateral agreements and can be challenging to scale up. An alternative, as proposed by EFTEC and the IUCN Peatland Programme, would consist of establishing financing vehicles that could mobilise financing streams from multiple beneficiaries, which reap not only carbon benefits but also water quality or biodiversity gains.

Actions & Impacts

The IUCN UK Peatland Programme launched a UK Peatland Strategy in April 2018 after almost 10 years of partnership work, through steering committees, workshops, and direct consultation. The programme’s current target is to have 2 million hectares of peatland (the majority of peatland in the country) either in good condition, under restoration management or sustainably managed by 2040. Half that will be managed by 2020. This will be achieved through many interventions, including: communicating the value of peatlands to a wider audience; conserving and enhancing the best peatlands; restoring damaged peatlands to functioning ecosystems; adapting management of drained, productive agricultural peatlands; and sustainably managing peatland through sympathetic land use. Over 200 peatland restoration projects have already been implemented across the UK and have shown some positive results.  

One example of these projects is Flows to the Future in the Flow Country, Scotland; it is one of the UK’s most important regional sites, with 10 percent of the UK’s blanket bog and almost 5 percent of the world’s blanket bog resource. Damage caused by land use changes (for example, plantation forestry and drainage for grazing improvement) has spurred the RSPB, a programme partner, to buy part of the land and lead restoration activities through the creation of a nature reserve. Another example is within the Pennines, a range of mountains and hills in England that are home to around half of England’s blanket bog. Here, programme partners Moors for the Future, the North Pennines AONB Partnership, and Yorkshire Peat Partnership are working together to restore the heavily degraded peats. around 50,000 hectares have been restored, which is only a small percentage of the total area needing restoration work. Moors for the Future is a partnership that includes the Environment Agency, Natural England, National Trust, RSPB, several water companies (Severn Trent Water, United Utilities, Yorkshire Water), Pennine Prospects, and representatives of the moorland owner and farming community. It received initial funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.  

A third project—Pumlumon, in Wales—is led by Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust. It covers 40,000 hectares, including heavily drained blanket bog. The goal is to restore and build a landscape that is sustainable for people and wildlife: So far, 270 hectares of drainage ditches have been blocked.  

References

Blue smoke // In the pile of fallen leaves, two mushrooms are spraying spores, in the wild in Guangzhou.

©Bo Lei/TNC Photo Contest 2022