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Growers, NGOs, environmentalists and the public stand together urging the government to act to stop the destruction of peatlands
More than 16,700 people have signed a petition calling on the UK Government to put an end to peat sales. A huge thank you to everyone who added their voice – including growers, environmentalists, supporters, NGOs and many more.
The destruction of peatlands destroys wildlife, impacts water quality and releases carbon into the air – and it’s got to stop. That’s why we were at Downing Street, as part of the Peat-free Partnership on Wednesday 25 February, calling for legislation.
Petitioners were also joined by a Bog Creature, showing Londoners how important it is to protect peatlands and the species that live there!
We have hand delivered a petition to the Prime Minister’s doorstep calling for legislation to end peat sales to be introduced in 2026.
Until legislation is in place, peatlands will continue to be destroyed. Around 760,000 cubic metres of peat are used by the horticultural industry every year – enough to fill more than 300 Olympic sized swimming pools.
In October 2025, the UK Government announced plans to end peat sales in the Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery Plan. This was a positive step forward; we need to ensure this is put into law.
Alongside our partners in the Peat-free Partnership, we’re calling on the government to commit to a date and introduce legislation in 2026.
The petition is not only one of the largest public calls for peat legislation, but also a demonstration of environmentalists, growers and businesses coming together.
With the Peat-free Partnership, we were joined by the Wildlife Trusts, the Royal Horticultural Society, organic veg box supplier Riverford, Professor Dave Goulson from Sussex University and horticulture organisation Garden Organic.
And you can’t forget…the Bog Creature. Heads turned in London as an eye-catching representation of peatlands emerged from its natural home, highlighting the devastating impact of commercial peat extraction.
Vast quantities of peat from bogs in the UK, Ireland and the Baltic states are used every year in horticulture – causing damage to wildlife, the climate and nature recovery.
A ban on all commercial trade in peat is needed to provide:
Read more here.
We want to say thank you to everyone who has already given their voice to the campaign to end peat sales. The petition is still open if you would like to add your voice. Or if you would like to help further, please do email your MP asking them to write to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) about this issue.
Or if you’d like to learn more about the campaign, please visit Peat-free Partnership.
The Bog Creature in London
Petitioners handing 16,700 signatures into Downing Street. From left to right – The Wildlife Trusts’ Head of Public Affairs Matt Browne, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Director General Clare Matterson, the Peat-free Partnership’s Sally Nex, Professor Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex and Founder of Riverford Organic Guy Singh-Watson
The Bog Creature and campaigners outside the Downing Street gates
The Peat-free Partnership is funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and hosted by the wild plant conservation charity Plantlife. It is a broad coalition bringing together horticultural businesses and organisations alongside environmental NGOs across the UK with the overarching goal of ending the sale and supply of peat for horticulture in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The Partnership works with a range of horticulture sector businesses wanting to see swift progress towards legislation to end peat sales, from small nurseries to large wholesalers, retailers, market gardeners and compost manufacturers. Other partners include the RHS, The Wildlife Trusts, Garden Organic, the National Trust and National Trust for Scotland, and many others.
Extraction of peat for gardening and horticulture continues to damage wildlife and our climate, despite government commitments to phase it out.
This blanket bog is one of the most extensive peatlands left in Europe and has recently been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as part of the Flow Country.
Hosted by Plantlife, the Peat-free Partnership is a coalition of horticultural businesses and eNGOs calling for an end to commercial peat trade across the UK.
The peat-rich Flow Country, which our Munsary Peatlands are part of, has been given the same standing as the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon.
This marks a special moment for Scottish wild plants, fungi and the wildlife that call it home.
With the same standing as the Pyramids and the Great Barrier Reef, The Flow Country has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status – marking a magnificent moment for Scottish wildlife.
Deep within this historic landscape is our own Munsary Peatlands, which is an incredibly special place for plant life. One of the most extensive peatlands left in Europe, our Munsary Nature Reserve is key for tackling the ongoing climate crisis.
Alistair Whyte, Head of Plantlife Scotland said: “The Flow Country may be less well-known than the Great Barrier Reef, the Grand Canyon and the Pyramids but it is cause for great celebration that it today has achieved the same standing as those rightly revered places on Earth. Recognition of the special significance of this wet and wild habitat in northern Scotland, where ancient peat can be as deep as a double-decker bus, demonstrates a growing recognition of the importance of peatlands to plants, people and planet.”
This historical moment also means the Flow Country has become the world’s first peatland World Heritage Site.
After years of hard work, we are thrilled that The Flow Country, in northern Scotland, has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site – a special moment for Scottish wild plants, fungi and the wealth of the wildlife they support.
UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) seeks to encourage the identification, protection and preservation of natural and cultural heritage around the globe considered to be of outstanding value to humanity. What makes the concept of World Heritage so special is its universal application. World Heritage sites belong to all people, irrespective of where they are located.
The list of World Heritage Sites is as varied as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to the Pyramids of Egypt – and now that list includes the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland, located near Lybster in Scotland (among just over 30 sites currently in the UK).
Munsary, a vast and undulating plain of blanket bog, is home to a huge variety of wildlife including some rare and threatened species.
This historic landscape is the most intact and extensive blanket bog system in the world. As well as being very important for biodiversity, it is also classed as an Important Plant Area (IPA). IPAs are key sites for exceptional botanical richness and identified as the best places for wild plants and their habitats.
So far, 147 species of vascular plants have been recorded at Munsary including the nationally-scarce Small Cranberry and a patch of Marsh Saxifrage, discovered in 2002, which is one of the largest colonies in Britain. The reserve in Caithness is also home to a Bog Orchid, a tiny yellow-green orchid which is so slight as to be almost invisible in the few bogs where it grows.
But, healthy peatlands – like Munsary – are more than just wildlife havens; they also have a vitally important role as we tackle the climate emergency. In fact, the vast expanse of pristine peat formed over many millennia at Munsary locks up a staggering two million tonnes of carbon.
Some species to look out for inlcude:
A special feature at Munsary is an unusual-looking area of dark-watered pools, high on a dome of peat, called dubh lochans. This area is particularly diverse, with pools of different shapes, sizes and depths, vegetated pools, and open water, ridges, and hummocks.
Even a visitor who has never studied mosses can spot differences between those forming the peat. Some form neat, rounded mounds, others are brownish or reddish tufts, while others make a deceptive green lawn, floating over water of an uncertain depth.
The drier areas of bog moss are home to many characteristic bog plants: Bog Asphodel, with spikes of yellow flowers, Common Cottongrass, with many white cottony heads in summer, and hare’s-tail cottongrass with just a single, fluffier head. Three species of heather grow here and plenty of sedges too, including such hard-to-find species as few-flowered sedge, flea sedge and bog-sedge.
Insect-eating plants lurk beside streams and wet pools: butterwort, with a basal rosette of broad, yellow-green leaves on which small insects stick, and round leaved and great sundew, with long red hairs on their leaves curving over to entrap their prey.
Peatlands are home to some of the UK’s most distinctive plant communities – they have evolved in response to the low-nutrient conditions. This has led to some remarkable adaptations such as the insect-eating sundews and butterworts, and the spongy blankets of colourful spagnum mosses.
They are also one of our most important terrestrial carbon sinks. But when bogs are drained or the peat is exploited, the peat gets exposed to the air and begins to break down, releasing carbon dioxide. This turns a huge carbon store into a vast emitter, contributing to climate change. Read more here.
Munsary is a vast undulating plain of peatland which stores around 1.9 million tonnes of carbon. Learn more about our reserve and how to visit.
IPAs are identified as the best sites for wild plants and their habitats using three criteria – threatened species, botanical richness and threatened habitats. Read on to find out more.
Extraction of peat for gardening and horticulture continues to damage wildlife and our climate, despite government commitments to phase it out. Plantlife is calling on governments and industry to end the use of peat in gardening and horticulture to benefit nature and our climate.
We are calling on governments and the horticultural industry to end the use of peat in gardening and horticulture.
Peatlands and their wild plants in Britain, Ireland and beyond continue to be devastated by the commercial extraction of peat. Damaging peatlands has a knock-on effect on wildlife, carbon stores, flood risk and water quality.
It’s time we stopped this destructive practice through new laws to ban peat sales.
Although governments across the UK have promised to do this and many believe that it is already banned, there are still no laws against selling peat.
Plantlife and its partners in the Peat-free Partnership are campaigning for legislation to ban the use of peat in horticulture in all four nations without further delay.
Our governments’ next steps will decide the fate of our precious peatlands. When will they finally mark the end of a decades-long debate and the beginning of a future where peat is left undisturbed for nature, people, and the planet?
Despite tireless campaigning to stop peat extraction and persuade gardeners to go peat-free, vast quantities of peat from bogs in Ireland, the Baltic states and the UK every year is still used by amateur gardeners and professional horticulturalists each year.
However, with an ever-mounting body of evidence documenting the environmental toll of peat extraction, government commitments and clear public support for a ban, the question is finally not ‘if’ but ‘when’.
A ban on all commercial trade in peat across the UK is needed to provide:
Peat-loving bogbean Menyanthes trifoliata at Plantlife’s Munsary nature reserve, Scotland. Photograph by Richard Lindsay
Peat is plant material which is partially decomposed and has accumulated in waterlogged conditions.
Peatlands include moors, bogs and fens, as well as some farmed land.
Peat bogs are particular types of wetlands waterlogged by direct rainfall. Peat bogs grow slowly, accumulating around 0.5 to 1 mm of peat each year, and the water prevents the plants from decomposing. As a result, many areas of UK peat bog have been accumulating gradually for as much as 10,000 years, and can be up to 10m deep. Due to its slow accumulation, peat is often classified as a fossil fuel.
Commercial peat extraction in the UK and Ireland is largely from raised bogs in the lowlands.
Much less peat comes from blanket bog, which is much thinner and more often found in the uplands in Scotland and western parts of the UK.
Peatlands are home to some of the UK’s most distinctive plant communities. Diverse organisms have evolved in response to the low-nutrient conditions which has led to some remarkable adaptations, like the insect-eating sundews and butterworts, and the spongy blankets of colourful sphagnum mosses.
Peatlands are also one of our most important terrestrial carbon sinks. But, when bogs are drained or the peat is exploited, the peat is exposed to the air and begins to break down, releasing carbon dioxide. This turns a huge carbon store into a vast emitter, contributing to climate change.
Peat bogs also act like a sponge, soaking up rainwater, and can help to reduce flood risk. Water filtered through healthy peat bogs is of a higher quality than water from degraded bogs, making it cheaper to treat as drinking water.
Other plants to find in peatlands such as Plantlife’s Munsary reserve in Scotland include cotton grasses, bog asphodel, rare sedges, cuckooflower, marsh violet, marsh cinquefoil and marsh willowherb. These support a range of butterflies, dragonflies and birds, including snipe and curlews, merlins and skylarks.
IUCN UK Peatland Programme (2011), Commission of Inquiry on Peatlands: Summary of Findings, October 2011
In 2015 more than half of peat used for horticulture in the UK came from the Republic of Ireland, where peat is extracted on a large scale for horticulture and for burning to produce heat and electricity. As peat extraction has declined in the UK, we have increased imports from Ireland, effectively exporting much of the environmental impact.
Put simply, our current use of peat is unsustainable.
In the far north of Scotland lies Munsary Peatlands, Plantlife’s largest and wildest nature reserve.
At nearly 2000 hectares, it can seem vast, but it’s only a small part of the much larger Flow Country -an expanse of blanket bog which extends to 187,000 hectares across the north of Scotland.
It is this blanket bog, one of the UK’s most unique landscapes, which is being proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Munsary Peatlands forms an integral part of the proposed site, which is being put forward for inscription as the world’s first peatland World Heritage Site.
The Flow Country is the world’s the most intact and extensive blanket bog system in the world. As well as being hugely important for biodiversity, it is also an important carbon store, locking up around 400 million tonnes of carbon.
Plantlife manages Munsary, our nature reserve, for its peatland habitat and for its rare plants – including the threatened Marsh Saxifrage.
The proposed World Heritage Site is also an Important Plant Area, identified for its important habitat and rare species. Recognising the Flow Country by awarding it World Heritage Site status would further reinforce how important it is for nature and climate.
One of the species from at Munsary – Grass of Parnassus, image by Alistair Whyte
Munsary Peatlands Nature Reserve
Another species found at Munsary – the Round-leaved Sundew, image by Alistair Whyte
In August this year we were delighted to welcome assessors for UNESCO to the reserve, to highlight some of the important features of the Flow Country and to discuss its management.
The visit was part of a week-long tour of the Flow Country by assessors, who met with land managers, local communities and peatland experts as part of their assessment of the Flow Country bid – led by the Flow Country Partnership.
Here at Plantlife, we are strongly supporting the bid, and will continue to work hard to protect Munsary Peatlands as an important part of this unique landscape.
A decision on whether to award the Flow Country World Heritage Site status is expected next year – stay tuned!
Join us as we take a look back at what went right for nature in 2025.
Thanks to Training to ID a rare moss species, numbers at one site where it is found in Scotland, tripled in just one afternoon!
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