Biodiversity is the variety of life on Earth, including plants, animals, and microorganisms, and the ecosystems they form. It’s crucial for the health of our planet and its inhabitants. But human activity is putting it at risk. One unsuspected culprit in its decline? Peat. Often found in gardening products, peat is seen as a miracle worker for plant growth. However, using peat comes with significant downsides, particularly for biodiversity.
Peat is partially decayed plant material that accumulates in waterlogged conditions in peat bogs and mires, forming over many thousands of years. These environments are vital for biodiversity, storing immense amounts of carbon in the process. They shelter unique ecosystems, supporting rare plants and wildlife that have adapted to these acidic, low-nutrient settings.
Use no-dig gardening to protect wildlife. Use fruit protection bags (over netting, which can trap birds and wildlife). Learn how to create gardens safe for pets (use humane slug/snail deterrents). Avoid facing indoor foliage to outdoor gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.
The Formation of Peat
Peat forms through a slow natural process. Dead plant material (mostly mosses) builds up in waterlogged conditions, where oxygen is scarce. Over millennia, the layers compress and, deprived of air, don’t fully decompose. This slow accumulation requires precise conditions, making peatlands rare and sensitive.
Peatlands provide crucial services. They are one of the world’s largest carbon stores, sequestering twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined. They regulate water by absorbing rainfall and slowly releasing it, reducing flood risks. Additionally, they offer shelter and food for diverse species.
The Impact of Peat Harvesting
Despite their importance, peatlands are being harvested at alarming rates for horticultural use. This practice devastates their delicate ecosystems and further contributes to climate change.
When peat is extracted, local habitats are stripped bare. The specialised species that thrive there, like certain mosses, insects, and birds, face destruction and displacement. The loss of these habitats means the loss of biodiversity.
Destroying peatlands releases vast quantities of stored carbon, turning them from valuable carbon sinks into sources of greenhouse gases. This acceleration of carbon emissions contributes significantly to climate change, with peatlands accounting for around 10% of global carbon emissions despite covering only 3% of the Earth’s land surface.
Peat is not renewable, so we’ve lost half of all peat bogs, with danger of them going extinct. Peatlands are also home to 5000 species of insects, and supply most of our drinking water (and help prevent floods). Yet just 1% of lowland peats remain in England
Alternatives to Peat
Even today, some organic veg box schemes use peat to grow lettuce, and it’s still legal to sell in garden centres. Gardener Monty Don calls using peat ‘eco-vandalism’ and wants the government to speed up the ban of its sale, due to bogs being home to endangered wildlife and insects like curlews, golden plovers and hen harriers, as well as countless amphibians and reptiles.
Cocoa mulch appeals to pets due to the aroma, but contains the same toxin as chocolate. There is no ‘pet-friendly mulch’ (pine mulch can puncture, rubber mulch can choke). If you use wood chip mulch, don’t leave pets unsupervised with it. Straw mulch is only digestible by ruminants, so pets eating it will be sick. Also keep fresh compost away from pets, as it contains mould.
- Natura Grow offers an organic compost made from energy crops on a Cambridgeshire farm, which are then fed into anaerobic digestors (which also helps to supply us with energy). You can buy this as a liquid feed or pellets that are added to soil.
- Some composts are made from coir (a by-product of processing coconuts) and others use bracken. Two good brands Fertile Fibre and Natural Grower.
- B & Q now sells own-brand peat-free compost and commits to going peat-free by 2026. But why wait until then?
Why Grouse Shoots Harm Peat Bogs
Peat burning often occurs on land used for grouse shoots, by burning vegetation (that lays on top of peat) – usually purple moor grass or heather. This is to provide new heather shoots for grouse, so they are easier to find and shoot. A voluntary ban by government a few years ago did not work, with Greenpeace reporting fires on peatlands in northern England’s national parks.
Peatland habitats also support many important species, including ground nesting birds like curlew, golden plover and hen harriers, and amphibians and reptiles. Plus removing peat causes floods, so grouse shoots also do so.
The peat bogs on a grouse shooting estate were on fire. The burning of peatlands is likely to exacerbate floods downstream. Towns in the Calder Valley such as Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd have been flooded repeatedly. George Monbiot
Choose ‘Unpeated’ Organic Whisky
Nc’Nean Whisky is the first Scottish organic whisky, which does not use peat for environmental reasons. Sold in an recycled glass bottle, this has flavours of citrus, peach, apricot, spice and rye bread. Made with organic barley and matured in red wine and American whisky barrels, it’s made in a net zero distillery.
The company founder (who set up the brand on her parents’ farm on Scotland’s west coast) said she never considered using peat fires to dry the malted barley, due to peats housing biodiversity and capturing carbon. She says that peated whiskies taste like TCP!
