ON THE VERGE - WE PROMISE:
“Never to use peat based products (EG: PEAT COMPOST) and will endeavour to minimise our carbon footprint in any activity we are involved with”.
Humans are drying out Europe’s ancient peat bogs
Nature Geosci. (2019)
Climate change and peat cutting are altering ecosystems, some of them centuries old.
Peatlands across Europe have experienced substantial drying in the past few centuries and might be on the brink of shifting from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
Around half of the organic carbon in Europe’s soils is stored in bogs and fens.
Climate change and direct human interference are now threatening to undermine the conditions needed to maintain the carbon stock that has accumulated over millennia.
Graeme Swindles at the University of Leeds, UK, found that almost two-thirds of sites have dried extensively over the past 300 years from the combined effects of climate warming and peat extraction.
Effective management and restoration are indispensable to prevent Europe’s peatlands from losing their carbon storage capacity irreversibly, the authors say.
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