How peat could protect the planet

More than 80% of the 1.7 million hectares of peatland in Scotland have been cut for fuel or otherwise degraded, and roughly 500,000 hectares have been drained and forested with non-native conifers.

Despite that, the peatlands have tremendous value for carbon storage. These areas hold more than one-quarter of all soil carbon, even though they account for only 3% of Earth’s land area. Globally, peatlands hold more than twice as much carbon as the world’s forests do, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

Restoring peatlands to health is one of the key ways in which Scotland, which last April became the first country to declare a climate emergency, intends to reach net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2045. “Scotland has raced out in front by making good connections with researchers and government,” says Jack Rieley, a tropical-peatland ecologist and executive board member of the International Peatland Society, which is based in Jyväskylä, Finland.

How peat could protect the planet