Peat Bogs Nearly Killed My Sister - But Can They Help Save the World?
On a childhood visit to my mother’s family on the Outer Hebridean island of South Uist, I witnessed first-hand the dangers of the mòine – the peat bog. Or, more accurately, my sister did. With the blissful ignorance of youthful mainlanders, we were running around the bogs when suddenly, she plunged into the ground, sinking! In a panic, I ran to get help, returning to find that she’d thankfully managed to pull herself out of the mire.
This frightening experience became an amusing story told at family gatherings, my sister never slow to remind me of my less than heroic reaction. However, the same bogs that nearly claimed my elder sibling as a grisly fossil are playing an important part in Scotland’s response to the climate crisis according to Professor Pete Smith, Professor of Soils and Global Change at Aberdeen University.
“Peatlands contain huge amounts of carbon, more carbon than is in the tropical rainforest, so the reason it’s important is because climate change is largely caused by carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When carbon is locked up underground in the soils, that’s not then in the atmosphere” Smith explains.
The restoration of degraded peatlands, historically used by rural communities such as South Uist to extract peat for fuel, is a central aim of the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan. However, Scottish investigative website The Ferret has reported that the government has missed its annual restoration targets, as around 80% of Scotland’s 1.9 million hectares of peatland remains degraded.
“We know that badly degraded peatlands are losing carbon at a rate of 30 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year. That doesn’t mean much to most people, but if you think the average family car emits about 4 tonnes of CO2 per year, then you’re talking about several family cars and your driving every year just being emitted by a hectare of peatland. So, restoring those degraded peatlands to their former glory will switch off that emission source.”
Smith explains that doing so is difficult due to a skill shortage of those able to carry out the work as well as the limited time frame when it can be carried out – after winter, but before the bird breeding season. Tackling these practical problems is just one of the reasons why he was recently appointed to the First Minister’s Environmental Council, carrying particular significance in the wake of the latest IPCC report. With COP26 due to be held in Glasgow in November, Smith is unequivocal about the upcoming climate conference’s importance.
“We’re in the last chance saloon of hitting the Paris targets (to limit global temperature rises to well below 2 degrees). That will be out of our grasp if we don’t take radical action now. I mean now. This year and next year. Not just this decade. This is the decade for action for the world.”
If the mòine can help Scotland do so, even my sister couldn’t possibly begrudge it any longer.