Anja Murray: Peat bogs are so much more than just a source of fuel

Restoring bogs has enormous benefits for biodiversity, including for many species that are nearing extinction here because of the drainage and loss of most of the peat bogs over the past 50 years

Turf, when used as a fuel, is more climate polluting than coal.

The word ‘bog’ comes from the Irish for soft – bogach – like the saying ‘tóg go bog é’ – take it softly, take it easy. The reason why peat bogs are so soft is that they are made up of the remains of mosses and other plants that have accumulated over thousands of years, never really breaking down properly because of the wet, acidic environment that is unique to peatland habitats.

All growing plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. When they die and rot, some of the carbon they contained is released back into the atmosphere, some is incorporated into the earth. But in a bog, the organisms that normally decompose plant material are absent because of the slightly acidic and totally waterlogged conditions there. This means that rather than that carbon being re-released into the atmosphere when the plants die, bogs store all that carbon away for thousands of years, as layers of peat. Peat is the soggy fossilised remains of dead plants. As well as storing fossil carbon, healthy peat bogs actively soak carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.