Turf wars

#PeatFreeApril is a new month-long, industry-wide campaign that has been launched to get smallholders and gardeners to go peat free. Sally Morgan reports

- Sally Morgan

Every year Britain’s smallholders and gardeners buy billions of litres of peat-based compost despite clear evidence that peat bogs play a crucial role in the battle against climate change. Why is it still being dug up and used in ready-made composts? Why are we still buying it? Switching away from peat is one of the easiest things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint and help to tackle the climate emergency.

WHY IS PEAT VITAL?

A pristine peatbog sucks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks up the carbon, helping to counter the over production of carbon dioxide elsewhere. Globally, peatlands store twice as much carbon as all of the earth's standing forests, hence their vital role in climate change. And it’s not just carbon sequestration that’s important. The UK’s peat bogs are among the country’s rarest and most fragile wildlife habitats, home to golden plovers, dragonflies, sundews and more. The peat holds water and releases it gradually, helping to reduce the impact of flooding downstream. But, after years of damage, only 20% of the UK’s peatlands are in good condition and, instead of storing carbon, the degraded ones are actually releasing greenhouse gases while water companies are spending millions on removing peat from drinking water.

Peat formation is a slow process, barely a millimetre a year, so a thick layer of peat represents thousands of years of stored carbon. It is, therefore, horrifying to learn that UK gardeners use 3bn litres of peat every year — the equivalent to millennia worth of growth.