The IUCN Peatland Conference 2021

This week Kate Russell from the Tellus Natural Capital team attended the virtual IUCN Peatland Conference 2021. With dozens of presentations on a wide variety of subjects over four days, she has distilled some of the key messages from the event for landowners of peatlands with an interest in natural capital.

Nature-based solutions

Peatlands are capable of delivering multiple nature based solutions including:

·       Emissions savings through restoring degraded peat

·       Greenhouse gas reduction through enhanced sequestration of carbon by well-functioning peat

·       Flood mitigation through natural flood management

·       Improved water quality

·       Water storage

·       Enhanced biodiversity

Peatland restoration schemes

There is a huge amount of activity in peatland restoration schemes right across the UK, with techniques for re-vegetating bare peat and for re-wetting through physical interventions now well-established. However, it is important to understand the causes of degradation before designing a restoration scheme. Good mapping and data is required – the England Peat Map project will contribute to this (see our blog of 2nd June 2021).

Scaling up peatland restoration funding

Many organisations are wrestling with the challenge of proving that models which blend public and private finance, or which rely entirely on private funding, will work. There are questions over the returns available to investors, the standards by which buyers will assess credits and how multiple benefits can fairly be stacked or bundled.

Defra is soon to bring forward a Big Nature Impact Fund which will provide a vehicle for this type of blended investment into nature based solutions. Further detail is awaited on this interesting development.

The Peatland Code

·       The Peatland Code is a UK based voluntary standard, now on IHS Markit Registry

·       It assesses and credits emissions reductions, not carbon storage

·       Further work is underway and v.2 of the Code is due in early 2022

·       There was said to be much interest from carbon buyers, but landowners are generally yet to be convinced that the prices are sufficiently attractive to sell their PIUs

·       Defra and the Scottish Government are both considering whether a price floor could be introduced, in a similar way to that which operates for the Woodland Carbon Code.  

The importance of partnership working

There was much discussion about the importance of involving all the relevant parties in discussions on natural capital and restoration projects, including the landowners, agents, gamekeepers and farmers who know the land best. Natural capital projects can often extend over several land ownerships and it is essential that schemes are designed to work alongside existing land uses, including grouse shooting and sheep farming. There will inevitably be conflicts, but all those involved must take the time and effort to resolve them at a local level.

Some concern was expressed over the growing market for investors to acquire land outright for forestry or peat restoration and the impact that such acquisition could have on rural communities, given the likely pace and scale of change that could result.

Windfarms on peat

While English planning policy has been broadly against onshore wind development since 2015, new sites are still being rolled out in Scotland and Wales. Where those are on peatlands there can be significant additional challenges to overcome in terms of avoiding high value areas, minimising infrastructure on peat and mitigating the impact through restoration projects. In Scotland, the impact of climate change (but not biodiversity loss) is set to become a material consideration for renewables applications.

There was an interesting presentation by Richard Lindsay of the University of East London, who is an expert on peatland slope stability. Landslips have occurred on peatland sites following inappropriate windfarm development, where access roads can act like drains across the peat, destabilising the ground. The Scottish Government published Peat Landslide Hazard & Risk Assessment: Best Practice Guide for Proposed Electricity Generation Developments in 2017 to help those advising on such developments to address the key issues.

17th September 2021