Peat Conservation

This might be of interest to anyone teaching about climate change in schools. Having taught this to a Year 9 class it was surprising how little they knew about peat.

The lesson began telling students that a peat bog is a carbon sink – meaning it stores carbon. It is made up of partly rotted organic material which builds up and becomes peat. Peat bogs are helping to counter climate change in that they soak up the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Bogs are also very important for biodiversity. Peat is a fossil fuel and traditionally has been used as a fuel and is now used on a commercial scale by garden centres selling bags of compost with peat in and also in plants potted up in peat-based compost for selling.

There are many other abuses of peat bogs such as overgrazing, people walking on them and inappropriate burning which causes destruction of plant species and peat structure. Also, when peat is cut for commercial use, it dries out – when it dries it releases the carbon stored back into the atmosphere.

There is a very good slideshow which can be used to educate children or adults. If this is shown in school it might also help schools to realise why they should be using peat free compost themselves in any school planting projects which they might be doing.

In school we then made posters asking people to use peat free compost and put them up in our school windows.

It is a good time of year (as the growing season approaches) to be raising awareness of the value of leaving peat in the ground and demanding that Garden Centre’s only sell peat free compost.

If we don’t buy it – they can’t sell it!