In the 1980s, Scotland planted commercial trees in parts of 9,000-year-old peatlands; Decades later, conservationists are removing them to protect the wildlife and keep its stored carbon in the ground.The huge project focuses on Flow Country, a vast area of wet marsh covering more than 400,000 hectares in Caithness and Sutherland in northern Scotland. In July 2024, UNESCO named the area a World Heritage Site, placing it alongside natural treasures such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon. It became the first peatland in the world to receive this special status. King Charles III marked the event by visiting the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Forsinard Flow Reserve to unveil a special plaque.Despite its global fame today, large parts of this ancient landscape were almost ruined forty years ago. During the 1980s, tax regulations and government subsidies encouraged forestry companies to drain wetlands, build deer fences, pave roads, and plant long rows of commercial trees.
destruction of wild habitat
The rapid growth of these tree farms damages the delicate swamps. The trees sucked water from the muddy ground, causing the deep peat soil to dry out and crack.This loss of open land threatens native birds, which need wide, treeless areas to nest. Before government action stopped planting, about 900 pairs of golden plovers, about 800 pairs of dunlins and 130 pairs of greenshanks were destroyed in the area. The area is also an important home for hen harriers, insect-eating sundew plants, common scoters and red-throated divers, which lay eggs near small marshy ponds.
A Common Greenshank was standing at the bank of a water pond.
Pressure from the Nature Conservancy Council, the RSPB and other green groups eventually forced the government to change its plans. In January 1988, Malcolm Rifkind, who was then Secretary of State for Scotland, announced that the government would protect more than 140,000 hectares of peatlands as Sites of Special Scientific Interest. Later that year, then-Chancellor Nigel Lawson abolished the tax breaks and grants that had made plantations on peat profitable.
Reversing the damage done in Forcinard Flows
The real clean-up work began in 1994 when the RSPB purchased the Forsinard Estate in the heart of flowe country, paid for by donations from its members. Today, RSPB Forsinard Flow is the largest nature reserve managed by a charity in the UK.Using funding from two large EU Life Nature grants, conservation teams tested methods of cutting down commercial trees, blocking drainage drains and re-soaking the ground. The main goal is to turn thousands of cleared hectares back into healthy, functioning marshes.The alternative to cutting down trees goes beyond helping wildlife. Peatlands are often called the lungs of the Earth because they absorb and store carbon. The soil of the Flow Country alone contains approximately 400 million tonnes of carbon, more carbon than all the forests and woodlands of Britain combined. When the peat dries, that trapped carbon leaks back into the air as a heat-trapping gas.
Government support and broader goals
Peatlands cover two million hectares across Scotland, accounting for 25 per cent of the country’s land area and more than 60 per cent of all peatlands in the UK.To help recover this land, the Scottish Government has pledged £250 million over ten years to restore 250,000 hectares of damaged peatlands by 2030 through its Peatland Action Programme. Official records show that more than 75,000 hectares of land has been earmarked so far, including a record 10,360 hectares during the 2023-24 financial year.Scotland’s peatland policy focuses on three main steps: protecting healthy sites, caring for working lands and repairing damaged areas. The new science suggests that other practical steps, such as protecting farm animals and deer from overgrazing, re-wetting farm soils and changing the way grassy peatlands are used, could cut gas emissions even further.
swamping communities
Recovering remote peatlands means working in difficult conditions, where cold weather and wet soils make field operations difficult. To gain public and political support, conservation groups created improved visitor sites at Forsinard Flows.The reserve now has a lookout tower that provides visitors with a wide view of the open landscape. New investments have added modern research rooms and habitat to the site, allowing scientists, researchers and volunteers to live in the reserve and study how healthy marshes trap carbon and restore rare birds.In addition to storing carbon and creating homes for wildlife, the Scottish Government sees peatland restoration as a way of creating green jobs. The long clean-up effort is bringing work to the countryside in northern Scotland, supporting local hotels and cafes and creating green tourism.