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New guide for gardeners to go peat-free and help wildlife at home

The Wildlife Trusts have unveiled a new handbook to help people go peat-free in their gardens and to recognise the importance of peatlands for nature and climate.

Last August, the government announced that the sale of peat compost to amateur gardeners will be banned by the end of 2024. As this is 18 months away, The Wildlife Trusts are urging people to make the switch to peat-free gardening now.

The Wildlife Trusts are disappointed that the ban on commercial use of peat will not happen fully until 2030.

The new handbook, Greener Gardening: Perfecting Peat-Free provides tips and tricks for getting the most out of compost, a guide for making compost at home, and information about buying peat-free products.

Peatlands are the UK’s biggest terrestrial carbon-store, as well as providing vital habitat for wildlife. Research by The Wildlife Trusts revealed that extraction for use in horticulture has caused up to 31 million tonnes of CO2 to be released since 1990.

Sunsetting over peatland

Mark Hamblin/2020 VISION

Sara Booth-Card, peatlands campaigner for The Wildlife Trusts, says: 

“Buying or making sustainable, peat-free compost is an easy way for gardeners to help nature and the climate. This free guide provides lots of useful information to help people transition to peat-free gardening this year.

“Peatlands have some of the quirkiest plants and animals found in the UK. They include insect devouring plants like sundews, camouflaged golden plover chicks that look like little pom-poms and sphagnum moss that can hold 20 times its own weight in water. UK peatlands store more carbon than all the forests in the UK, France and Germany combined. The nature and climate crises mean we must do some things differently, including gardening without peat.”

The Wildlife Trusts are continuing to call upon the UK Government to: 

  • Ban the extraction and commercial trade of peat immediately 
  • Ban all horticultural uses of peat as soon as parliamentary timeframes allow, or by 2024 at the latest 
  • Restore all bogs damaged by the removal of peat by 2030 

The Wildlife Trusts are leading peatland restoration projects across the UK and have restored over 50,000 hectares of peatland in England alone. Working with partners and landowners, there are short term plans to repair a further 20,000 hectares.

Download the guide

Editor’s notes  

  • Join 4,000 others who have already made the pledge to go peat free here. 
  • 2021 Growing Media Monitor data – see here.  Every year emissions from degraded peatlands are equivalent to the carbon footprints of over 1.9 (1.99) million British citizens – peatland emissions: 23.1 Mt CO2e/year – see here. Carbon footprint of average UK citizen based on UK consumption emissions of 774Mt CO2e/year and a UK population of 66,796,807 – see here and here. 
  • UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world –  here.  UK only has 50% biodiversity remaining – here. Up to 31 million tonnes of CO2 released by peat extraction since 1990 – here. 

See also  

  • Peat sales to be banned by 2024, The Wildlife Trusts, August 2022. Available here 
  • Devastating climate impact of using peat in UK horticulture revealed, The Wildlife Trusts, February 2022. Available here 
  • Governments set low bar on phase out of gardeners’ use of peat, The Wildlife Trusts, December 2021. Available here 

Peatland importance 

80% of the UK’s peatlands are now degraded as a direct result of damaging practices such as drainage for agriculture, burning and peat extraction for horticulture. Peatlands are important for biodiversity, home to a host of highly specialised and rare species – from the carnivorous plant, sundew, to Red-listed birds as well as reptiles, amphibians, insects and mammals. It is the lack of protections afforded to habitats like peatlands which has propelled the loss of almost 50% of the UK’s biodiversity. Peatlands are also crucial carbon stores, locking away over three billion tonnes of carbon in the UK alone. However, when peatlands are damaged, this carbon is released. Today, emissions from peatlands make up 4% of all UK annual greenhouse gas emissions, and the UK is a world leader in emissions from degraded peatlands. To put this into context, every year emissions from degraded peatlands are equivalent to the carbon footprints of over 1.9 million British citizens. 

The Wildlife Trusts    

The Wildlife Trusts are making the world wilder and helping to ensure that nature is part of everyone’s lives. We are a grassroots movement of 46 charities with more than 900,000 members and 38,000 volunteers. No matter where you are in Britain, there is a Wildlife Trust inspiring people and saving, protecting and standing up for the natural world. With the support of our members, we care for and restore special places for nature on land and run marine conservation projects and collect vital data on the state of our seas. Every Wildlife Trust works within its local community to inspire people to create a wilder future – from advising thousands of landowners on how to manage their land to benefit wildlife, to connecting hundreds of thousands of school children with nature every year.

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