https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/11/10/cop26-peat-carbon/
Bogs, mires, fens, and marshes – just the names conjure up images of myth and enigma. Today, though, our fascination in these wet landscapes is more mundane. Due to a lack of oxygen, they can accumulate massive amounts of organic debris that does not breakdown effectively. This is referred to as peat. Peatlands may hold up to 644 gigatonnes of carbon, accounting for one-fifth of all carbon stored in soil on Earth. Not bad for a habitat that occupies only 3% of the planet’s land surface.
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Peatlands were previously common around the world, but many have been dug up, drained, burnt, built over, and turned to agriculture, thus their historical significance has been lost. While most of the discussion about utilising natural ecosystems to remove carbon from the atmosphere focuses on planting trees and replanting, some ecologists say that repairing the peatlands that people have spent ages draining and destroying is a far better answer.
With the government now intending to do this all across the world, it’s interesting exploring the landscapes’ secret legacy and how they formerly powered daily life.
The absolute prerequisites
Peat bogs in temperate locations such as our own nation can be hundreds or even thousands of years old. Peatlands have long provided the essentials of life for the populations that surround them. People extracted peat from fens, heaths, moors, and bogs in mediaeval Britain, which were carefully maintained and preserved as common land for all to exploit.
People had the right to cut peat for fuel and as a construction material from all of these environments. Peat blocks were utilised to construct the walls, turf was used for the roofing, and peat offered great insulation for the walls and beneath floors. In rare cases, whole structures were cut out of the land’s deeper peat.
Plants growing in peat bogs were also gathered. Construction was done with cut willow, or “withies,” and thatching was done with reeds, sedges, and rushes. These ecosystems also provided plentiful pasture for cattle and wildfowl such as geese, as well as fish that flourished in ponds.
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Peat turf smoulders quietly and has helped keep some flames burning for a century or more. The fuel is smoky and emits what became known as “peat-reek,” a harsh odour that attracted the prevalent midges and mosquitoes.
These mediaeval marshes were infested with marsh ague leading to many health diseases to people residing in their surrounding. Those raised in the near around areas of it developed a degree of tolerance to the sickness, but suffered from yellow jaundice as a result of the impact it had on their livers, and were short in height.
Traditional rights for commoners to freely utilise peatlands had been washed away by government actions of enclosure, which transformed land into private property, by the 19th and 20th centuries. Peat was sold door-to-door or at marketplaces as a byproduct of commercial extraction.
Peat was used as litter for horses that powered burgeoning towns and cities, and subsequently for combat horses in World War I. As the twentieth century progressed, remnant peatlands were mined on an industrial scale for compost to feed the world’s growing gardening obsession.
HOW CAN PEAT BOG RESTORE CLIMATE?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/27/ireland-closes-peat-bogs-climate-change
Scientists estimate that from the 16th century to the present, peat mining in England released around 16.6 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. That is equivalent to the yearly production of 15 coal-fired power plants today. Peat mining throughout the world may have had an impact on global climate prior to the industrial revolution.
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Because many old bogs are cultivated, restoring all of that carbon will be difficult. Peat-rich soils in the India’s lowland bread basket produce the majority of its domestically cultivated crops – yet continue to leak carbon into the atmosphere.
It is projected that these arable farms on converted temperate peatlands emit 41 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year. Agriculture specialists estimate that the fertility of these soils is being depleted, with less than 50 harvests remaining in the peat-fen countryside of most of lowland England.
With so many demands on the land, from growing food to building buildings and producing electricity, it’s easy to wonder why we should create place for peatlands. However, peatlands formerly supplied all of these benefits and more. Recasting them as an ally in the battle against climate change is simply scratching the surface of their potential utility.
Tags: #bogs, #Britain, #carbon, #climate, #environments, #fens, #getgreengetgrowing, #gngagritech, #greenstories, #health, #heaths, #life, #mires, #natural, #Peatlands, #soil
