COP26: Restoring peatlands to help tackle global warming
Representatives from Manchester Met are attending COP26 to help accelerate action to tackle climate change. We’ll be sharing our insights and research that is making a difference over the duration of the conference.
Dr Chris Field delivered a virtual talk on peatfield restoration at the summit’s Peatfield Pavilion on Friday, November 5.
Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University are helping to reduce carbon emissions from different types of peatlands across North West Europe, by restoring their natural capacity to store carbon.
As part of the EU-funded ‘Care-Peat’ project, university research is helping to find innovative solutions for peatland restoration, involving local and regional stakeholders.
Peatlands are important habitats for lots of specialised wildlife and play a huge role in the fight against climate change.
They are the world’s largest carbon store, holding over 550 gigatonnes of carbon, which is more than twice as much as the world’s forests.
However, this carbon can get released when peat is extracted for horticulture, burned, or drained for the planting of crops and other uses, devastating carbon storage capacity.
Dr Chris Field, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Ecology at Manchester Met, said: “Our research will provide answers on how best to protect our peatlands and help to reduce carbon emissions.”
“Through the Care-Peat project, we are working with nine partners across North West Europe to restore the carbon storage capacity of peatlands.
“Our partnership with Lancashire Wildlife Trust in the UK is already showing the impact that managing these natural spaces can have in the fight against climate change.”
Working with the University and SME partners BeadaMoss®, Lancashire Wildlife Trust are applying combinations of plants including Sphagnum moss at Little Woolden Moss nature reserve in Salford to promote speedy re-vegetation of degraded peat and rapid carbon storage.
The partnership is also creating a pioneering carbon farm on a former drained agricultural field on peatland next to the Winmarleigh Moss Site of Special Scientific Interest nature reserve near Preston.
Dr Field said: “We are monitoring greenhouse gas emissions and to understand how quickly this carbon source can become a carbon sink.
“As a result of our partnership we have seen CO2 emissions from the site already drop by 90%, and we predict that, by the end of the Care-Peat project in 2023, 7800 tonnes of carbon emissions will have been saved across the different peatlands.”
Find out more about the Care-Peat project and the Winmarleigh Carbon Farm.
