Soils and carbon

Our soils are a precious resource. We depend on them for growing our food, filtering our water and holding back floodwater. They are also a unique wildlife habitat.  

Yet over decades our soils have been degraded, putting wildlife and people at risk. Soil health must be put at the heart of how we use and manage our land. 

Why are soils important? 

Healthy soils are essential for nurturing all wildlife and for our ability to grow food. They’re home to more than 25% of all biodiversity on Earth! 

Soils help to: 

• reduce flooding 

• store carbon 

• protect against drought 

• provide a home to wildlife 

They are the foundation for our food, clean water, biodiversity and for combatting the climate crisis.  

All these things mean that the effective management of our soils is vital to our wellbeing, wildlife and a successful economy. If we continue to degrade soils we will be less able to grow food or source clean drinking water. 

Soils are home to more than 25% of all biodiversity on Earth

We also need healthy soils if we’re to meet the target of 30% of land connected, protected and managed for nature’s recovery by 2030.  

The British Isles have taken 3 billion years to develop into their current form and include a greater diversity of rock and soil types than anywhere else on Earth of comparable size.  However, all across our countryside soils are being eroded and carried out to sea. This is having an impact on wildlife on land, in watercourses, and around our shores.  

Healthy soils underpin our food systems, climate and natural ecosystems

If you want to discover more about the importance of soils, read our report 'Digging into our soils', which explores this subject in more detail.

Read Digging into our soils (PDF)

The impact of modern farming on our soils

Much modern farming relies on soil disturbance and adding nutrients to soils to manage weeds and support productivity. Nitrogen- and phosphate-based fertilisers are applied to increase yields, and pollution from transport can also add to nutrient levels.  

However, poorly managed and unhealthy soils and their nutrients are easily eroded from farmland. They are then washed down rivers, altering aquatic and marine ecosystems.  

Farmers can use many tools to help protect soils such as:

• building organic matter
• minimising soil disturbance
• monitoring soil health
• using legumes to build fertility
• using cover crops so soil is not exposed
• treating farm soil as a corridor for nature, using soil for public education and access opportunities. 

The Wildlife Trusts lobby for a range of measures which are necessary to help our soils recover.  

Our work on food and farming

Peatland soils

Peatlands are amazingly wild places, home to birds, insects and unusual plants that aren't found anywhere else. Peatlands provide benefits for people too - the UK’s peatlands store around 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon, and we get 70% of our drinking water from peatland river catchments. 

Peatlands are wetland habitats formed over peat soils. They’re made up of a mix of partly decomposed plant materials, in particular the 'bog mosses' that are a key feature of peatlands. Peat takes thousands of years to form - plant material decays very slowly in wet conditions and gradually becomes compressed into peat, millimetre by millimetre. 

Peatlands are tough places to live but wildlife still thrives here including colourful sphagnum mosses, beautiful large heath butterflies and the black darter dragonfly. Peatlands provide important nesting and feeding grounds for many wading birds such as dunlin, curlew and greenshank. 

Peat in horticulture

Peat has been a major ingredient of compost sold for gardening for many years. This peat is dug out of wild places, damaging some of our last remaining peatlands here in the UK and overseas in places like eastern Europe. This process also releases carbon into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. 

But peat-free compost is available – if everyone used it our peatlands would be safe from this type of damaging practice. By buying peat free you’re helping our precious peatlands and sending a message to manufacturers that people want peat free products. Both are really important. 

How to go peat free 

Our campaign to ban peat compost 

Peat-based compost is not the only problem in our horticulture supplies. The UK also uses a significant amount of lowland peat soils to produce the nation’s vegetables. Those soils need to be rewetted to protect the carbon stores and restore the wildlife.

Read more in our agricultural lowland peatlands report