Peatland restoration is an essential part of the UK’s pathway to decarbonisation. Nature is the only mechanism of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in this country at present, mainly through woodland ecosystems and also healthy peatlands. When in good condition, in a waterlogged or re-wetted state, peatlands are a wildlife hotspot; home to rare plants like sundews and cotton grass, butterflies like the marsh fritillary, and beautiful birds like the golden plover.

Peatlands hold enormous amounts of carbon in their soils; around 3.2 billion tonnes across the UK. But 80% are in poor condition, and are releasing rather than capturing carbon. Around 20 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (4% of total UK emissions) is being emitted each year. If the UK is going to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions, this needs to stop, and the carbon stored within peatlands to be protected from further losses.  

Getting peatland emissions down is part of the UK Government’s Net Zero Strategy, but to date both the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and the Climate Change Committee (CCC) have been warning that the level of restoration is far too low. The Climate Change Committee in its last progress report recommended to UK Government that restoration rates need to be around 67,000 hectares per year across England, Wales and Scotland by 2025. The UK Government has set itself a much lower target of 32,000 hectares per year. By the Climate Change Committee’s latest count, only 12,700 hectares came under restoration in 2022/23; way below both interim targets. 

However, the amount of restoration being counted seems out of step with the activity we know is underway. The Climate Change Committee rely on what’s in the UK greenhouse gas inventory, and what UK Government says it’s doing on current restoration effort. For England, data comes from the Nature for Climate Fund, plus figures supplied direct by Scottish and Welsh governments, with no data made available from Northern Ireland. It is difficult to track this data and exactly which peatland information makes it through.  

We now have detailed information on the peatland restoration happening across The Wildlife Trusts, however, revealing that: 

• Since 2008, The Wildlife Trusts have brought 60,000 hectares of peatland under restoration across England, Wales and Northern Ireland – on our own land and in partnership with others¹

• We received £45.5 million in funding for this restoration work, half of which has come in since 2021 – showing that the rate of investment is increasing 

• Government funding is an important source of support, but is by no means the only income for our peatland restoration work: £13.4 million, almost a third, was from non-government sources. 

• We can show evidence of peatland restoration in Northern Ireland, which is missing altogether from UK Government figures. Ulster Wildlife has around 500 hectares under restoration already and are looking to scale up activity significantly in the next few years 

The main issue with UK Government numbers that we spotted is that for England, only direct government support from one funding steam is being counted; the Nature for Climate Fund. The Wildlife Trusts have received £6.8 million from this fund to date, all since 2021. But over this time period, Wildlife Trusts in England also received £6.7 million towards peatland restoration through other UK Government sources such as agri-environment schemes, and another £5.6 million on top from private, non-government funders including water companies, EU and philanthropic grants. This immediately suggests that using Nature for Climate Fund as a proxy for total restoration funding and effort in England is far too limited. Most of the Climate Coalition Committee’s estimated 12,700 hectares of restoration effort in 2022/23 came through support from this fund, meaning on the basis of the funding split, there could be at least that much restoration again that is not being counted at all. If that is the case, current total peatland restoration effort could be much closer to the UK Government’s 32,000 hectare target. 

The University of Oxford also looked at the latest emission factors produced by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) to work out how carbon emissions have been saved through our restoration work, as part of a project funded through the Agile Initiative. We received feedback from Wildlife Trusts on the starting and latest conditions of their peatland sites, which the team at Oxford translated into new estimates of emissions reductions over time.

In total, our collective restoration efforts have saved almost a staggering one million tonnes of carbon since 2008. That’s 5% of the UK’s entire emissions from peatlands, just from the work of The Wildlife Trusts.

Because our restoration is not fully reflected in the national numbers, we’re confident that these emissions savings are not counted in UK Government or the Climate Change Committee's figures, and the total emission saving from peatland restoration to date should be far more promising.  

It’s obviously important that the actual level of peatland restoration underway is more accurately recorded. This requires several things. UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology has been working on a map to show the areas across the UK under active restoration, which would enable us to compare the work we know is happening against their estimates which go into the UK’s greenhouse gas inventory. However, this map is not yet available and there is as yet no mechanism for us to directly input our activity. The underlying data the Climate Change Committee uses to track restored peatlands is also not publicly available, so it’s difficult to know what it contains, and hence where the most significant gaps are and how best land managers can make sure their good work is recognised. Increasing the transparency of what is being counted in the UK inventory and the Climate Change Committee’s data would help organisations doing restoration work to check their own numbers. In the meantime, the UK Government also needs to be clearer about what is and isn’t being counted at present and what it really means. Progress against one Government grant programme shouldn’t be confused with progress across the UK as a whole, which is increasingly taking place through a mix of public and private funding sources. 

We hope the forthcoming revised UK Net Zero Strategy, which is due next May, will paint a more accurate, and more positive picture for peatland restoration and its valuable role in supporting climate action in the UK, as well as unlocking a better way to measure restoration across the UK. 

Kathryn Brown and Eleanor Johnston (The Wildlife Trusts), John Lynch and Xiao Zhang (University of Oxford) 

Footnote:

1. These numbers do not include restoration underway in Scotland. Restoration figures for the Isle of Man cannot be included in UK figures for formal reporting purposes, in order to avoid double counting.