The RSPB has today launched its Green Recovery Plan (CJS attended the launch event). Peat and the preservation of peatland was mentioned numerous times by the panel members. The UK has 13% of the world’s blanket bog, and the Yorkshire Peat Partnership estimates Yorkshire holds around 86,377 ha - around 24% of England’s total resource – storing over 38,000 tonnes of carbon. In addition to locking up millennia of carbon, healthy blanket bog helps to slow the flow of water from the uplands into rivers and streams, filters our drinking water and provides habitat for some amazing wildlife. Formed over thousands of years, it has taken just six decades to devastate Yorkshire's peatlands.
Most damage occurred between the 1950s and 1980s, when the government incentivised landowners to drain the land for “agricultural improvement”. Drainage channels – known as grips – were dug across vast tracts of blanket bog, which still criss-cross the landscape today.
Find out more about peat here
