THE HERITAGE VALUES OF PEATLAND

• Peatland eocsystems are rare in Australia
• There is often a diverse flora, complexity of vegetation types and rare or endangered flora associated with peatlands
• Rare fauna is often intimately associated with peatland habitats. This rare fauna ranges from reptiles, mammals and avifauna to invertebrates.
• Peatlands are a prime research site for palaeoenvironmental investigations of past vegetation and climate, with the potential to study changes from tens of thousands of years ago. The preservation of pollen, vegetation remnants and carbon in layers in the peat allow the dating of vegetation types and changes in the region surrounding the peatland and the influence of fire, rainfall and general climate fluctuations. This is vital in better understanding and predicting future climate change.
• Peatlands and their overlying dense vegetation cover act as vital filters of pollutants (sediments, nutrients, chemicals, heavy metals) for water catchments and reservoirs.

There is an important educational role for peatlands for students from primary school to tertiary level.

THE PEAT EXTRACTION INDUSTRY

What is Peat?
Peat is partially decayed organic matter laid down in anaerobic (lacking oxygen) conditions in wetlands.

What is extracted peat used for?
Peat has a number of uses: as fuel, as a potting medium, as mulch, as absorbent material in industry and for pollution control, and for casing in mushroom farms.

Where does extracted peat come from?
Most peat used in Australia is imported, from New Zealand and various northern hemisphere countries. Very little is produced in Australia, although a number of new peat extraction operations have recently commenced. Peat forming wetlands are rare in Australia because there are few wetlands which are absolutely permanent – in dry periods any peat formed will be oxidized.

Why is peat extraction damaging?
Extraction of peat results in habitat destruction. Peatlands are a specialized habitat and support unique assemblages of species. At many sites extraction involves modification of drainage, so that much larger areas than that extracted are adversely affected.

While in historic times recovery from small scale operations was possible, modern large scale industrial operations are essentially unsustainable over any meaningful time frame. There is now wide public recognition of the consequences of unsustainable logging of rainforests – the damage caused by peat extraction (which unlike rainforest logging does not even have the theoretical possibility of being sustainable) is in every way as serious a threat to biodiversity.

Globally peat deposits are a major carbon store. Oxidation of peat is a major contributor to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and hence the increased greenhouse effect.

What are the alternatives to using Peat?
There are a number of peat alternatives (including material made from coconut husks and various bark products). These are every bit as good as peat for horticultural use.

WINGECARRIBEE SWAMP

Wingecarribee Swamp is the largest, and one of the best examples of a montane peatland in New South Wales. Peatland ecosystems such as Wingecarribee Swamp are rare in Australia.

Wingecarribee Swamp is an outstanding, if not unique, freshwater upland mire (peat-producing wetland ecosystem) containing a complexity of vegetation types and diverse flora.

It is a prime research site for palaeoenvironmental investigations of past vegetation and climate, with a potential to study changes from over 20,000 years ago.

Wingecarribee Swamp contains a number of rare and significant plant species, including the threatened herb Gentiana wingecarribiensis which is endemic to the site and restricted to microhabitats on the swamp. This species has not been collected since 1973 and is thought to be highly vulnerable to changes in water levels. Its survival depends on conservation of this habitat.

The remaining Wingecarribee Swamp peatland is vital for maintaining water quality to Wingecarribee Reservoir. The peat and dense wetland vegetation cover together act as an important filter of potential pollutants (sediments, nutrients, chemicals, heavy metals) to a major water storage and supply in the region. Although surrounded by mostly cleared land it is an important ecosystem ecologically, hydrologically and scientifically in the total catchment.

Hope and Southern (1983) surveyed all significant mires in southern montane New South Wales. Their report, which includes lists of biota, found Wingecarribee Swamp not replicated elsewhere and that it is an outstanding site compared to other known Australian peatlands. Wingecarribee Swamp has very high educational values.

WINGECARRIBEE SWAMP - SCENE OF ONE OF
AUSTRALIA'S WORST ECOLOGICAL DISASTERS

The National Trust of Australia (NSW) waged a major campaign in the 1990s against peat moss extraction at Wingecarribee Swamp in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. The Trust entered the Wingecarribee Swamp Landscape Conservation Area on its Register in 1992 and in the following year Wingecarribee Swamp was entered on the Register of the National Estate.

Although owned by Sydney Water and proposed as a Nature Reserve peat extraction from the Swamp continued until March 1998 when an Interim Conservation Order was placed by the Minister for Urban Affairs and Planning.

However, in a violent storm on the night of 8 - 9 August 1998 the mining dredge broke adrift from its moorings and cut a swathe through the Swamp’s peat moss and was swept downstream into the Robertson Reservoir. The resultant erosion deposited an estimated 1.7 to 2.3 million cubic metres of peat into the reservoir.

‘As the dredge swept downstream into the Reservoir, its legs extending 10-15 feet through the hull of the pontoon like twin keels or knives, ripped a strip out of the Buffer Zone between the dredge pool and the Reservoir. The Buffer Zone was meant to protect the Reservoir from peat mining.

The dredge dug a channel through the peat that was about 1500m long by 10m wide. Backed up floodwaters burst through the channel carrying agricultural and urban runoff into the Reservoir. The northern banks of the swamp caved in and the peatland vegetation was churned up all the way from the mining site to the head of the swamp several kilometres upstream.

The swamp had collapsed, its whole topography and geography transformed overnight. A Wetland of National (perhaps international) significance was reduced to a torn and twisted wreck which may take hundreds of years to fully rehabilitate.’

David Tranter, Robertson Environmental Protection Society, 1998

Following this disaster the NSW Minister for Mineral Resources announced that mining leases for Wingecarribee Swamp would not be renewed.

The Wingecarribee Swamp and Special Area Plan of Management endorsed by the Minister for the Environment in May 2001 has confirmed the scale of this ecological disaster:

‘The majority of the peat that once occurred in the swamp is now in the reservoir. In a number of areas, the only material left is the clay and soil substrate that previously sat under the peat layer.

‘The partial collapse of Wingecarribee Swamp into the reservoir in August 1998 has fragmented and its destabilised the swamp , fissured and lowered much of its surface by up to 5 metres, lowered the water table, altering drainage patterns and creating a new channel which now bisects the length of the swamp.

‘This event has significantly added to the nutrient and particle load in the reservoir, modified some habitat areas of the threatened plant Lysimachia vulgaris var. davurica (Yellow loosestrife) and damaged and placed at risk habitat areas of other threatened species.

‘The swamp collapse has revealed some archaeological sites which may have been buried for up to 15,000 years. It is anticipated that there are more exposed sites than have already been identified. These sites have not yet been mapped. Their exposure means they are no longer protected by peat. Consequently, wooden items will be in the process of deterioration and many stone elements may be quickly covered by weed growth.

‘Because the swamp surface is now fragmented and has extensive exposed dry areas, it is highly susceptible to invasion by weeds. Young willow seedlings are establishing themselves in huge numbers across the swamp. If these seedlings are allowed to grow there will be a number of serious consequences: the swamp will dry out more rapidly and the fire risk will increase, the maturing willows will out compete native vegetation allowing the swamp to become covered with willow and other exotic species such as blackberry, and the mature trees and bushes will be very difficult to remove.”

“The swamp’s previous role as a filter to water entering the reservoir from the catchment has been damaged. The potential for full recovery of the water quality in the reservoir remains to be assessed.

‘The structural failure of the swamp and the lowering of the water table are causing the peat in the swamp to dry out. Dry peat is highly flammable. A dry area of former swamp is a major fire hazard and in this case the extent and depth of the swamp means that a fire would be very difficult to extinguish.

Restoration of the swamp to its previous condition is considered, at the present time, to be unachievable in terms of cost, practicality and the potential impact of construction on the swamp environment.’

WORLDWIDE ACTION ON THE PEAT ISSUE

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or natural beauty in England, Ireland and Wales

The National Trust is responsible for conserving the world’s largest private collection of historic gardens and cultivated plants.

Since 1991 it has been policy not to use peat for mulching or soil amelioration in its gardens.

In November, 1999, a resolution at the National Trust’s AGM to end the use of peat in its gardens resulted in 99,020 member’s votes for the resolution and 6,157 votes against the resolution. In 2001 the National Trust began to phase out the use of peat in all its gardens.

The Trust has developed its own environmentally-friendly retail product, produced by Petersfield Products of Leicester and is available at National Trust plant centres and independent garden centres at £4.50 for a 40-litre bag.

Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney

The Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens in 1997 adopted a “peat-free” policy which was set out in its submission to the Mining Warden’s Court Inquiry into the renewal of the leases for peat extraction in Wingecarribee Swamp

Royal Horticultural Society

1 The Royal Horticultural Society shares public concern about the effects of peat extraction on wildlife habitats and fully endorses the call for peat bogs of nature conservation importance to be protected.

2 The Society respects the sincerity and aims of the principal organizations which campaign on the issue of peat use in horticulture, and acknowledges the value of reasonable debate and all-round cooperation. It believes that gardeners should be guided by unbiased and factual information towards the use of alternatives to peat wherever such are known to be reliable.

3 In the Society’s view there are at present problems attached to the elimination of peat from all situations met by amateur gardeners.

4 For soil incorporation and ground mulching in gardens the Society considers that there are good alternatives to peat.

5 The Society does not use peat as a soil improver or surface mulch in any of its Gardens. The Society recommends exhibitors at its Shows to use peat alternatives for staging purposes. The Plant Centres run by RHS Enterprises stock peat alternative products, thus providing customers with choice.

6 The Society supports the evident need for more research and development work to test the use of peat alternative materials across the widest range of growing situations.

Scottish Wildlife Trust - Policy on Lowland Peat
Policy Statement

1. The Scottish Wildlife Trust considers that, in view of the international conservation value and rarity of primary lowland raised peat bogs, all significant naturally vegetated examples remaining in the United Kingdom should receive complete legal protection from damaging operations. All remaining areas of primary raised bog should be designated as SSSI, and any existing planning permissions which threaten damage to such sites should be revoked at the earliest opportunity.
   
   
2. The Scottish Wildlife Trust considers that the mechanised commercial extraction of peat from lowland raised peat bogs is fundamentally unsustainable and cannot be justified on environmental grounds. There can be no justification for the granting of any new planning permissions for the extraction of horticultural peat from lowland raised bogs.
   
   
3. Whilst recognising that it is impossible to re-create a lowland raised bog once it has been destroyed, the Trust considers that every attempt should be made to rehabilitate all damaged sites which are still recognisable as peatland and to return them to a state as close as possible to natural lowland raised bog. Such reinstatement conditions should be imposed on all existing commercial peat extraction operations affecting lowland raised bogs and funds should be made available to promote the necessary management work on other raised bog sites.
   
   
4. The Trust considers that the future of the UK horticulture, landscape and gardening industries lies in the use of sustainable products based on recycled organic waste materials rather than peat. The Trust favours the development of appropriate products from municipal composting facilities; greater government support for peat alternative development, production and marketing; and the imposition of an environmental tax on peat products.
   
   
5. It is the Trust’s view that the use of peat for open-ground applications (such as soil improvement, mulching and tree planting), should be stopped immediately and its use in more demanding commercial products (e.g.: seeding, potting and multipurpose composts), should be phased out at the earliest practical opportunity.
   
   
6. The Trust believes that all of the above should take place within a National Peatland Conservation Strategy.
   
   
7. The Trust will campaign to influence the public; the horticulture, landscape and gardening industries; central and local government to achieve the above. In particular, gardeners and horticulturists will be encouraged to adopt sustainable practices which do not use peat.
   
   
8. In all relevant areas of its work, The Trust will adopt a “Peat-free” policy which accords with its public stance.

The Council for British Archaeology

The Council for British Archaeology has leant its support to calls from environmentalists for the Government to speed up the designation of the most important of the UK’s peat bogs as Special Areas of Conservation. The Council for British Archaeology believes that this is vital in precipitating an end to peat extraction on important bogs and mires which, year upon year, results in the irreversible and immeasurable loss of important archaeological and ancient environmental remains.

The environmental damage caused by peat extraction is well known - peat bogs are home to rich habitats inhabited by rare birds, plants and insects. But they also contain a wealth of well-preserved archaeological remains and represent a rich ‘archive’ of information about the changing human relationship with the environment over millennia. This is because archaeological artefacts made from organic materials such as wood, and accumulated ancient faunal and floral remains such as plant remains, seeds, trees, pollen, spores, insect remains and shells, are better preserved in the waterlogged conditions present in bogs and mires, such as those at Thorne and Hatfield Moors in South Yorkshire, than on ‘dry’ land. The continued industrial-scale extraction of peat on such bogs therefore only serves to accelerate the loss of this important and non-renewable archaeological resource.

CBA Research and Conservation Officer, Alex Hunt explains: ‘The peat milling process destroys all archaeological and ancient environmental remains getting in its way’.

Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens leads the world in botanical research and conservation, and delights millions of visitors with dramatic and dazzling displays of flowers throughout the year. Kew leads by example - and grows all the plants without peat. Instead, the gardeners use home-grown compost and other growing mediums. If Kew can do it, why can’t we all?

Lowland raised peat bogs are one of the rarest wildlife habitats in the UK - 94% of them have already been lost. Yet their destruction continues, because “plant lovers” demand peat. It’s not just a British problem - commercial peat extraction continues in many parts of the world. So if you care about the survival of peat bogs, and their special communities of flowering plants and mosses, birds and insects, please don’t buy peat. Make your own compost or buy substitutes and avoid buying plants which have already been potted up in peat. Tell your supermarket or garden centre that you care.

If you can, visit a peat bog to see for yourself how special they are. Bogs are not as dreary as some people imagine!

• HOW YOU CAN HELP!
  HOW YOU Support the National Trust’s campaign to save our rare peatlands.
• 
  Ask your local nursery for advice on peat-free composts and what products are suitable for soil improvement and plant propagation and cultivation
  
  Keep visiting this website to see the latest news on this campaign.
• Join the National Trust and boost our efforts through your personal involvement. Click here to join or call (02) 92580123

JOIN THE NATIONAL TRUST NOW

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