Archive
GOOD NEWS FOR PEAT
10/04/2025
Several years ago, when the problems of habitat destruction of peatlands (draining and cutting for horticulture and fuel) had come to the fore, Betts Ecology surveyed large areas of blanket bog of which the UK holds 13% of the world’s total, mostly in Scotland and northern England. Peat cutting, as in this photo, was then a major industry. Such practices have since greatly reduced and, for example, you will rarely find potting composts containing peat these days. Some peatlands have had their water tables restored to stop their desiccation, but another practice, the burning of surface vegetation of peat moorlands to create habitat for grouse shooting, has continued apace.
The red grouse Lagopus scotica (Latham, 1787) feeds on heather, particularly favouring young shoots which appear after the heather is burned. In this way grouse numbers on the shooting moors are increased. The practice of burning on deep peat, though, is bad for biodiversity, degrades a precious natural habitat already under threat, and increases carbon emissions. Therefore, quite rightly, the government intends to ban it which, predictably, is not popular with the sporting folk and attempts by the previous government were largely thwarted by grouse shooters’ lobbying.
Peatlands, left undrained and unburned, sequester billions of tonnes of carbon, but that carbon is released by desiccation and burning which also kills terrestrial wildlife such as reptiles and amphibians as well as degrading typical peatland flora.
The Labour government, supported by Natural England, are saying they will protect all peatlands, not just those that are SSSIs but generally, and that they will reduce the peat depth where burning is prohibited to 30cm – and any burning at all will require an evidence-based licence.
Although recent news about wildfires raging uncontrolled[1] over peat moorlands after the long dry spell this spring are disheartening, Labour’s anti-burning conservation measures on grouse moors should go some way towards seriously protecting our internationally important natural habitat of blanket bog – and is certainly an improvement in the government’s apparent attitude towards wildlife in its recent remarks about developers not having to care about newts and bats!
Betts Ecology keenly supports the conservation of peatlands and even small areas of sphagnum moss which is the key botanical element of peat.
[1] Note that strictly controlled burning is sometimes used to prevent the spread of wildfires.
