I listened with interest to the Environmental Audit Committee session on ‘Peatlands: natural and environmental benefits and impacts’ yesterday. You can catch up on the full recording of the session here: 4 March 2026 - Peatlands: natural and environmental benefits and impacts - Oral evidence - Committees - UK Parliament 

The committee had called a panel comprised of:

• Ms Sally Nex-Advocate at The Peat-free Partnership
• David Denny-Director of Research & Knowledge Transfer at Horticultural Trades Association (HTA)
• Mr Andrew Gilruth-Chief Executive at Moorland Association
• Gabrielle Edwards-Deputy Director of Access, Landscape, Peatland and Soils at Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
• Alan Law-Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer, Natural England at Natural England
• Craig Rockliff-Head of Biodiversity Data, Nature Regulation & Peatland at Environment Agency

Despite misrepresentation of our organisational status by the Moorland Association, the IUCN UK Peatland Programme’s work was widely cited and quoted from by both panellists and committee members. Opening statements reflected the range of positive benefits which arise from peatlands and the threats that they currently face and I was impressed by the range of issues which were raised by the committee. A very brief summary of some of the points covered is discussed below:

Horticultural peat

The EAC seemed (rightly) puzzled at the justification for why a peat ban has not been viewed as a priority and enacted by UK government to date. Sally Nex highlighted that Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland all have written policy commitments and actions to ban the sale of peat whilst England’s commitment is still hanging on ‘when parliamentary time allows’. David Denny of the HTA stated that extracted areas are c.2000ha and reducing and that they are “in favour of a peat free future for horticulture”. 

The IUCN UK Peatland Programme has long advocated for a ban on the use of peat in horticulture and supports the points made around the lack of clarity on when this will happen is creating a challenging environment of uncertainty for those working in the horticultural industry, and in some instances placing those who have already made the leap at a disadvantage.

Renewable energy infrastructure and windfarms

Comparisons were drawn between horticultural peat extraction and the amount of peat extracted by renewable energy infrastructure projects. Our back of envelope calculations using figures from the ClimateXChange report (Table 4) show that against an approximate annual extraction rate of 900,000 m3 for horticultural usage just three windfarms constructed on peat would amount to the same level of peat loss. It seems contradictory to recognise the impact of extraction while simultaneously greenlighting windfarm construction on the very same habitats.

Indeed, Alan Law, Natural England stated that it would be “perverse if we were trying to save carbon through wind generation at the expense of our most important carbon assets”. And we agree. But we simply cannot answer that question with the EIA and other data collected through planning and monitoring of developments at present.

A repeated call from IUCN UK PP to each of the four national governments in recent years is that we need better national and UK level accounting of the wins through restoration and conservation action for peatlands but also honest and transparent accounting for the losses. Even just cataloguing known direct impacts would be a start and there needs to be widespread improvements in the way in which data is collected and monitoring undertaken to allow for indirect impacts to be accurately quantified. 

It was disappointing that the panel yesterday were not able to answer the committee’s questions on the use of the carbon calculator outside of Scotland. We are aware that the Scottish Government, in collaboration with Defra, are about to undertake a review and likely revision of the carbon calculator but we do have concerns that the evidence is not available to make the improvements that are sorely needed if such a tool is to be used to best effect.

Burning

Burning is just one part of the issue when it comes to peatlands, yet  it continues to dominate and stifle debate on the other wide-ranging issues relevant to peatlands, despite having been the subject of significant recent legislation.  I and many others feel we have moved beyond the need for balance when it comes to talking about rotational burning on grouse moors, which is carried out to encourage heather growth to benefit red grouse. While has been active debate both scientifically and politically, we have reached a position where the science and policy makers find directional consensus; burning damages peatlands. We have seen the introduction of regulation through licensing in both England and Scotland within the past two years. Unless a significant amount of new science and new data emerges which run counter to the existing body of evidence, there is no reason to anticipate the legislation will change. The IUCN UK Peatland Programme regularly review available evidence to update our brief and position statements and the most recent version of the ‘burning position’ statement was published in April 2025, these updates supersede all previous versions.

Wildfire

The debate that does still remain is how wildfire risk is managed in a post-burning management landscape. We welcome constructive debate and scientific discourse about the evidence with respect to wildfire and the management of wildfire risk as this develops. Restoration efforts have already resulted in demonstrable successes in reducing wildfire damage and risk, with examples illustrated by the examples of Llyn Gorast, Wales - and Golticlay, Scotland. 

As the Committee pointed out yesterday, drawing conclusions from international policy and habitat examples is not the correct approach, particularly as these are frequently arid or grassland habitats, some of which are fire climax communities which naturally, and necessarily experience much shorter burn cycles. The UK’s peatlands are not fire climax habitats although some peatland plants exhibit fire adapted traits, therefore they need a specifically tailored approach that works with their unique ecology. 

Water 

Re-wetting was discussed specifically in terms of the benefits that healthy peatlands can bring through supporting summer base flow, reducing flood peak impacts and improving drinking water quality. However, claims which are not supported by evidence were also made around the limitations of rewetting by the Moorland Association with Mr Gilruth claiming that you “can’t keep water on top of a hill” and indicating that rewetting was not an approach which could be rolled out beyond the blocking of drains. Many restoration partnerships have been re-establishing Sphagnum on areas of bare peat, eroded bog and areas of Calluna-rich dry bog.  Once Sphagnum is established it holds the water on the hill-that's what it is good at - refuting the claims made that peat cannot be rewetted beyond the reach of a drain.

Lowland water issues were also covered in limited detail with some hopes pinned on the forthcoming land use framework in England allowing for better management of water across whole peat units, as opposed to the field scale management we have in place at present.

Public funding 

ELMS funding was discussed briefly. The Landscape Recovery scheme gives the potential for a long-term framework for funding peatland partnerships and restoration delivery. We hope that this scheme can be transformed to deliver the ambition of change at the landscape scale but we are hearing from partners at present that alignment with other public-private funding sources is a challenge and technical elements of the scheme, such as contracts, are unworkable. 

UK peatland resource

The EAC raised the point that the extent of UK peatlands- contrary to what was discussed by panel members about the scale of peatlands in Canada, for example- is relatively small. However, differentiation of the habitat is important here. Much of the UK’s peatland resource is blanket bog and globally, we the British Isles, hold an outsized proportion of this habitat; approximately one fifth of the global total. The Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland represents the single largest extent anywhere in the world; a key reason for its inscription as a UNESCO world heritage site. Therefore, the importance of the UK’s peatland habitats should not be understated in these discussions.