Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Official Report 484KB pdf

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Peatlands

Agenda item 3 is a briefing on peatlands. We will use this as an information-gathering exercise in which we will focus on the International Union for Conservation of Nature UK peatland programme and the importance of peatland for climate change mitigation. The committee plans to take further evidence at the start of June 2012.

I invite members of the panel to introduce themselves and, in particular, invite Clifton Bain to speak about the peatland programme.

The commission of inquiry on peatlands was set up more than 18 months ago on the basis that peatlands are massively important ecosystems. The conservation and restoration of peatlands is an existing biodiversity priority. It will secure huge carbon stores, enhance long-term water quality and provide flood control benefits. The beauty of the programme having started in Scotland—this is where we are based—is that Scotland holds a disproportionate amount of the peatland resource for the UK, with more than 60 per cent of the UK’s peatland, and we are in the top 12 of 175 peatland nations. It is quite right that we are here and I am grateful to Rob Gibson and the committee for your on-going support throughout the inquiry.

The inquiry deliberately set out to adopt a consensual approach to peatland, bringing together some of—to be frank—the best scientists in the subject. We have with us representation from scientists in Scotland, and we have had fantastic support from the Scottish Government as well as its agencies. This has been a consensual and very scientific exercise—it is probably the biggest piece of scientific work on peatlands across Europe in a long time.

The outcome is that we have a strong case for supporting urgent peatland action. Spending now makes good sense, in that it will deliver multiple objectives for one price. It is better to protect, repair and conserve our peatlands than to leave them damaged. The sooner we repair them, the less the risk of deterioration, which will mean lower costs and less risk to the valuables inside them.

11:45

On climate change, under the Kyoto process, there is huge international recognition of the importance of peatlands. While we await more definitive figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is clear that we can go ahead with peatland restoration. It is a no-loss, no-regret option and damaged peatland has a far greater global-warming impact than a restored peatland.

Scotland has strong information and survey data. The committee will hear more from the scientists, but there is a strong scientific case for conserving peatlands. We also have a strong consensual case. At the Scottish Wildlife Trust event on lowland raised bogs, which took place last week, we heard from community representatives who have been out there on the peatlands helping with the restoration work. They are positive about that activity, but are looking for help.

What are the next steps? The inquiry made some recommendations, and there is consensus among the four UK countries—I have met all the ministers with responsibility for the environment—that we need to show clear leadership, because this is a multi-agency activity that cuts across sectors. We also need an action plan, targets, clear funding—not necessarily brand new funding; it could be funding that is pooled from different strands—good communication and good knowledge exchange across the scientific community, which can be brought together in a clear and focused programme of work.

There is international interest in the work that is being done. I have just been at a meeting in Bonn with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which is examining peatland activity around the world and gathering examples, and I am off to the world conservation congress in South Korea at the end of the year, at which we have been given the opportunity to hold a peatlands seminar that will draw together all the examples of action across the world.

Scotland can shine in the international community. People are watching what we are up to, and there is a good opportunity for Scotland to show that it is taking action. The results of the inquiry give us the strength to go forward.

I will not give the other panel members the opportunity to introduce themselves, but I welcome them. Des Thompson is the policy and advice manager at Scottish Natural Heritage, Mark Aitken is the principal policy officer for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Professor Pete Smith is from the school of biological sciences at the University of Aberdeen, and Mike Billett is the section head and Natural Environment Research Council research fellow at its centre for ecology and hydrology.

We do not expect every member of the panel to answer every question that members ask. Clifton Bain can act as a guide to who can best answer the questions.

Clifton Bain made an interesting point about the amount of the UK’s peatland that we have in Scotland. Some people say that we have about 60 per cent, but others suggest that we have around 80 per cent. Can we clarify the disparity between those two figures, which have cropped up in our briefings?

One of the best briefings is the SPICe briefing on peatlands and climate change that has just come out; the figures that it uses reflect the best thoughts that have been gathered. A publication by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee estimates that there are around 2.3 million hectares of peatland in the UK, and that Scotland has approximately 1.8 million hectares of that.

The reason for the confusion is that the definition of peatland varies. The JNCC tried to be as broad as possible. Some parts of the UK measure peatlands to 40cm. In Scotland we measure to 50cm and in Europe they measure to 30cm. In ballpark terms, however, Scotland has 1.8 million hectares out of 2.3 million hectares.

I will leave the arithmetic to others.

I will ask a scene-setting question. From what I have read, the best short-term return can be achieved by repairing slightly damaged peatland. However, the restoration of areas that are in worse condition pays better long-term dividends. If that is the case, what balance needs to be struck between those?

Just to give people a vision in their minds of the situation, I say that most of our blanket bog resource—that 1.8 million hectares—is slightly damaged. It was gripped; drains were put in during the 1940s. The vegetation is still there, but the water level has been reduced and that needs to be repaired. Such bogs are where we get the best biodiversity returns and a small carbon benefit. It is still a relatively significant benefit, but it is smaller than what happens if we go to an area that is completely eroded with bare peat and big gullies, which loses a lot more carbon. The completely wrecked peatlands are much smaller in area and much harder and more costly to repair. If we focus on those, we get a bigger carbon gain but we lose much more of the biodiversity returns. We get a much bigger biodiversity return if we work on the less damaged peatlands.

The analogy that I use is that putting a roof on a derelict ruin will reduce the huge amount of rainfall that comes in, but by repairing the leaking roof on a national museum early, we prevent the roof from getting worse and protect the treasures inside. The point is that it is not all about carbon; we want to preserve our peat bogs because of the whole habitat. Also, if we repair a damaged bog before it gets to the heavily eroded state, we save tenfold in the costs of repair.

We need to take early action on the least damaged bogs. We also have the technology to repair the eroded bogs; 6 per cent of our peatlands are heavily eroded. Some are worth addressing, but we should also address bogs that have yet to get to that stage.

To be clear, what balance should we strike in that? It is perhaps a bit simplistic, but how should we break that up in terms of percentage commitment?

I will let Des Thompson answer, because Scottish Natural Heritage has commissioned work on restoration priorities throughout Scotland and we have had some interesting insights from that.

Graeme Dey has asked a crucial question. The key is to keep the good-condition bogs in good condition. The analogy that Clifton Bain used is good; we should focus on those bogs and do small things to stop the peat disappearing. Think of a tear: once a peat bog is opened up, carbon and peat pour out. That is the first priority.

At the other end, some localised areas of peatland are badly damaged. By restoring those local patches, we can improve the overall wealth of the habitat.

The success of restoration in the United Kingdom, in particular in Scotland, will largely relate to local climatic conditions. For example, in parts of Scotland where we have the optimum conditions for peatland development—such as the flow country of Caithness and Sutherland—the chances of restoration success are much higher than they are in dryer parts of Scotland or in parts of Scotland where there is much greater difference between climatic extremes. Peatlands have developed in climatic areas that might be more topographically challenging, so it might be much tougher to stop the leakage of carbon from those systems. There are significant regional differences in where we might want to target restoration effects in Scotland.

The briefing that we received from the Scottish Government says, with reference to what is called

“restoration C savings of the least damaged sites”,

that we might start to see some value after 10 years. I presume that the restoration work itself needs to be factored into that. What kind of time period does that generally involve for such peatlands?

Let us consider the gripped peatlands with drainage ditches that are still largely covered in vegetation. About 10,000 hectares of such an area at the RSPB Scotland reserve in Forsinard were blocked—blocks were put into the ditches to stop the water pouring out—and within a year the water level was right up, which is the crucial factor for any peatland. Within five years, the ditches were growing layers of sphagnum moss, which is the key species. Within 10 years, we expect the system to start really to rise again.

As we heard from Mike Billett, that can still happen within five years in a more tricky peatland. We have a site in Fife—Portmoak moss—where there has been huge disruption from tree planting. However, the trees have been removed from the bog and, within five years, the sphagnum carpet has reappeared and the water table has come up. That is the timescale within which you see real results, even on a difficult site.

On the type of site that has bare peat, with gullies that are 6ft deep—there are examples in the monoliths—it could take 10 years to get things back. In the north-east of England, within five years of raising the water level they are seeing sphagnum even in what is a heavily polluted and very dry area. You can click back the mechanism very quickly; you will not get a fully rich bog with all the sphagnum species for 10, 20 or 30 years, but the feeling is that it will stop emitting carbon in as short a period as five years.

The scientific evidence is very clear: there is consensus among scientists that the climate mitigation effects of restoring peatlands are positive. The blocking process involves a disturbance to the system, so heavy machinery might be used; members might have seen JCBs blocking up ditches. In disturbing any ecosystem, particularly one that contains a lot of carbon, there might a short-term hit to take in terms of loss of greenhouse gases or carbon. However, in the long term—Clifton Bain talked about 10, 20 or 30 years—we start to see a gain. The likely impact of restoration is very much about investing for the future.

In addition to the short-term benefits that we have referred to in terms of carbon sequestration and meeting the important biodiversity targets that we have in Scotland, we now have the scientific figures that show the positive effects on water quality in the relative short term. I am thinking, in particular, about the dissolved organic carbon issue, which is an important issue for SEPA and Scottish Water. In addition, in the short term, restoration of peat can contribute to national flood risk management by reducing “flashiness” of floods and so forth.

Two processes are involved that operate over slightly different timescales. When you restore a degraded peatland, you almost immediately switch off the on-going oxidation of the carbon. When you raise the water table, it becomes anaerobic and the decomposition slows by a factor of about 1,000. If you are losing a huge amount of carbon from those peatlands, you can almost immediately switch that off. Even though it might take a while for the sphagnum to come back and start absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, there is a fairly big hit immediately because you can switch that carbon off. There are some early hits from that process but—as Clifton Bain described—the hits from the accumulation of the carbon as a result of the new sphagnum forming a little later kick in later.

My questions seek to inform my understanding of the afforestation issue. I read that 200,000 hectares of UK peat bog have been afforested. How much of that is in Scotland? Can you briefly give us an understanding of how big a job it is to deforest and restore a bog?

How much of that 200,000 hectares is in Scotland is a good question. A figure of about 40,000 hectares is bouncing around in my head, but that cannot be the right figure, because I imagine that the majority of it will be in Scotland. The main areas of deep peat planting were clearly up near the flow country and the surrounding area.

I will make two comments on the question of how difficult the matter is. With the Forestry Commission, SNH and RSPB Scotland, huge projects have been undertaken to remove the trees. The difficulty varies depending on how old the trees are. The longer a tree is left, the harder it is to remove it and the more disturbance removal causes. There are different techniques: trees can be pushed into the bog or be taken away and used as biomass. There are different opportunities.

By and large, it is practical if the large organisations are involved. Even in some of the lowland raised bogs in the central belt, people have managed to remove plantation trees. The Forestry Commission is working to remove the trees on some sites in Dumfries. It is technically possible and it is not ridiculously expensive. More than 7,000 hectares have been restored in that way in Scotland.

12:00

The flow country, which is in the convener’s home patch, is the supreme area for blanket bog—some would say in the world and not just in the UK. Of that 400,000 hectare resource, 20,000 hectares have been restored so far through tree removal, damming and other activities. That is one of the most successful ecological restoration projects to have been carried out in Europe and it gives the committee an idea of the scale of the work. Such work can be expensive especially where peatlands are very damaged, but we have been fortunate to have a strong partnership between SNH, the Forestry Commission, the RSPB and Plantlife and to have a lot of European Union funding for LIFE projects, for which 50 per cent of activities are funded by the EU.

Dumfries and Galloway has been mentioned: I think Alex Fergusson wants to talk about that briefly.

I do not know what on earth makes you think that I want to talk about Dumfries and Galloway, but you are quite right. I represent Galloway, where a huge amount of afforestation has taken place. What is the balance between the benefits of restoring peatland after afforestation and the carbon capture from a forest, if that is possible to calculate?

There is good evidence on that. The Forestry Commission’s forest research agency has produced evidence on the matter. Big peatlands are long-term systems. Within two rotations, the planting of trees on bogs starts to hit a negative carbon position. Having trees on a bog increases greenhouse gas emissions. Because much of the peatland is deteriorating underneath the trees, what the trees take in is rapidly replaced by what comes out of the drained and damaged bog. The Forestry Commission accepts that. There is a gain to be made from taking trees off a bog. Even though trees suck in carbon faster, the loss of the huge store needs to be factored in.

The gain diminishes over a couple of rotations.

Yes.

I will talk about a conflict. Page 15 of the SPICe briefing refers to two issues separately. It mentions that grazing by sheep and deer can be negative and says that—as has been mentioned—afforestation can help to dry out bogs. The conflict is that taking sheep off peatland or disposing of deer would result in natural tree regeneration in peat bogs and would perhaps have a negative effect. What are your thoughts on how we can balance that out?

There are two clear points to make. We had an open evidence session at the University of Edinburgh, at which NFU Scotland and other land managers gave evidence. No direct conflict exists. Sheep grazing can continue on peatlands, but at a lower level than the intensive grazing in the past. The same applies to deer; they are a natural part of our uplands, but their numbers in some areas have been too intensive.

A combination of effects is involved. If an area has been burned for centuries and it has grazing and has been drained, that causes problems. If the water table is raised again and the peatland system becomes more robust, trees will not grow there; trees will not grow on wet peatland. That is the first benefit, so bringing the water table back up is crucial, because trees will not naturally regenerate after that. The hope would be that grazing levels could be kept down through management of deer and sheep to a level that would not exacerbate the situation.

When a bog is drained, it is even more vulnerable to such impacts. The solution is rewetting, if that makes sense.

The key word that Jim Hume used is “balance”. When peatland is in good condition and the numbers of sheep and deer are sustainable—when we have wet bogs and the sheep and deer are doing nicely along with the bogs—there is no problem. On the other hand, if grazing or other activities have been heavy and we have started to lose the peat, the remaining peat can sustain far lower densities of grazing animals. That is when a problem arises. The trick is to keep peatlands in good condition; in that way, many more sheep can be sustained. Balance is critical.

Good afternoon. I thank the witnesses for coming to discuss this important issue. I ask Mike Billett to explain an aspect that I do not understand, which is the interannual variability in the carbon fluxes. What assessments of that variability are being made that could feed into the report on proposals and policies or the diagnosis of the way forward? It could cause real problems.

That is a good question. The interannual variability is right at the forefront of what scientists are working on at the moment. Because Scotland’s climate changes enormously from year to year—it also changes seasonally—the ability of a bog to fix carbon will change annually. It will differ in a wet year from a warm year, and the time of year when the bog switches on and starts powerfully to draw down carbon from the atmosphere and lock it up will change each year. There is then an active growing period when the bog is much more able to fix carbon.

We are making some of the first year-on-year measurements to be made in Scotland, and we are finding that there is big annual variation, as has been found in peat bogs throughout the world. Each year, we get better at informing the science policy interface on the net benefits. The great thing about natural variability is that it also allows us to look forward to a future climate that might be different and it tells us what the likely benefits or changes in the peatland system might be.

Each year, our science gets more powerful. As I said, it is clear about the overall benefit. Peatland restoration is likely to become part of the reporting process internationally. The key step is to get it into the process, and we will then be able to modify the underlying science, because obviously science does not stop.

I am not sure to which of you it is appropriate to direct my next question. Is work being done on the relationship between what we are discussing today and Scotland’s biodiversity targets? Just as other countries are, we are falling short of our targets.

Yes, such work is being done. I can answer the question because I am heavily involved in completing the draft Scottish biodiversity strategy, in which peatlands are very much in the foreground. They are one of our most important habitats, but they are also one of the most complex in terms of setting conservation and management targets. We are working closely with the scientific and management community to ensure that the science is feeding in to help us to set realistic targets for the peatlands, and so that we can track progress and report to the committee and others on progress in improving the condition of the peatlands.

I have a comment in response to the question on interannual variability. It is not something that we need to be scared of, because what we need to report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the difference that we get through implementing a new management strategy. Even if there is interannual variability, we could look at paired plots, including those where there is restoration and those without it. They will both go up and down, but we will be able to see the incremental change from improved management and the restoration. There are scientific ways in which to factor out the interannual variability.

I note from the SPICe briefing that there has been damage to peatlands in the development of wind farms, but that subsequently good practice has been established. What is the relationship like between SNH, SEPA and wind farm developers, given that damage to peatlands?

For wind farm developments of more than 50MW—or approximately 17 turbines—SEPA requires carbon accounting to be carried out and is the agency responsible for validating that activity. The results of that carbon accounting, in which we would, essentially, examine the carbon payback for a particular wind farm, would be sent to the Scottish Government’s consents unit for a decision.

In addition, SEPA and SNH have jointly prepared a number of publications on the peat issue and have issued good practice guidance on minimising the amount of peat removed when installing turbines, building roads, using floating roads and so on. As a result of that guidance, on which the renewables industry, SEPA and SNH collaborated, colleagues involved with the issue have noted changes in practice. Undoubtedly, though, the construction of wind farms on peatlands is an important issue.

You seem to be saying that there is good collaboration between wind farm developers and agencies interested in protecting peatlands. Is that the case or do you think that, instead of the good practice guidance that you have issued, there needs to be more legislation on this matter?

Perhaps I should answer that, as I have very recently been involved in some work with Scottish Renewables. I find it ironic that, today of all days, with all the public interest in wind farms, SNH actually has a very strong, positive, collaborative working relationship with not only SEPA, but Scottish Renewables on peatlands and a whole range of other issues, including post-construction monitoring. This has been a great success story of how to develop good practice, how to minimise impacts on people both during construction and subsequently and, indeed, how to provide guidance on where we would prefer wind farms not to be developed. It is certainly worth putting it on record that we have a very good working relationship with Scottish Renewables and a number of individual developers.

So you see no need for further legislation.

No.

As was said in the previous session, I just wish that the press were here to listen to and understand these rational arguments.

I should perhaps add a small rider to this discussion. As part of their close involvement and participation in our inquiry, the wind farm industry and Scottish Renewables gave us some excellent examples of the large-scale peatland restoration they had carried out in order to reduce the carbon footprint of developments. They were repairing already damaged peatlands in the locality and investing millions of pounds in repairing large areas of peatland. It just shows how the requirement to reduce the carbon footprint has led to positive outcomes for peatland biodiversity.

As someone involved in the development of the wind farm carbon calculator, I should reiterate that Scottish Renewables and a bunch of other companies were engaged as key stakeholders in that work. As that tool shows, if good practice is not followed in constructing a wind farm, the payback time is ludicrous and does not make a huge amount of sense. The technology might aim to reduce carbon, but a lot of it is piddled out when the turbines are put in. On the other hand, the tool also shows that if all the examples of best practice are followed and the best restoration possible is put in, the situation can be significantly improved.

At the outset, we thought that the tool would show just that this activity would be a bad thing but, on the upside, it also shows the restoration measures that need to put into practice either at the wind farm or in the locality to offset certain potentially negative impacts. As a result, we have had good engagement from all sides, particularly from Scottish Renewables, as the tool gives it a way forward and a whole bunch of guidelines from which the good practice guidance was developed.

I have a queue of members waiting to ask questions.

I will return to the issue that arose at the very outset of our discussion about the area of Scotland that is involved, the different measurements that are used and the different ways of defining peatland. How does that square with the efforts to secure international accounting guidelines for carbon abatement? If you do not agree on how to measure peatland, how can you work out how to measure carbon abatement?

12:15

That is a good, clear question that has exercised our minds and the minds of international scientists who are involved in the Kyoto process. They have come up with a net-net accounting process, which we will get Pete Smith to explain in more detail, as he is the master of the maths behind those things. With a net-net accounting approach, all that has to be done, in effect, is to measure what we have changed since 1990. We accept that carbon was coming out of the bogs in 1990 from previous drainage, and we measure the positive changes that we have made since then. That is how the Kyoto process works. If any damage has been done since 1990, we measure that as well, and that is far more measurable. We simply monitor the areas that we have restored or measure the areas that we have restored and the areas that we have done further damage to. That saves a lot of time and effort.

Pete Smith knows a lot more about the details of that than I do.

I do not really want to try to explain the accounting, so I will skip over it. The important thing is that the IPCC is developing guidelines for wetlands that include peatland restoration. I think that the letter from the minister that was tabled with the documents associated with this meeting refers to the meeting that Scotland hosted earlier this year. The guidelines are out for expert consultation. Therefore, there is a mechanism that means that, if we can identify the areas and the practices that have occurred, we can account for the carbon either at the crude level, which is the tier 1 level, at which we just have an emission factor, or at the tier 2 or tier 3 level, at which we go into more sophisticated measures.

Annabelle Ewing’s question was not only about that; it was also about the activity data. If we do not know where the peatlands are and what state they are in, it will be difficult to apply those factors spatially. Work still needs to be done. Work that SNH has funded and which is being conducted by the James Hutton Institute is starting to fill in the gaps. We know where the data is, but there has not been funding previously to look at it. We are starting to put things together, and I am confident that we will have sufficient activity data to start to run them in a national accounting framework.

I agree that the SPICe briefing is excellent. It states:

“Scotland has ... 4% of Europe’s total peat carbon store.”

From the perspective of a commonality of interests with other countries, from which Scotland could garner support in terms of international positions, who are the other main players in the area, particularly on the European stage?

In Europe, there is considerable expertise in Germany and Holland, which have damaged a lot of their lowland peatlands. We are the European stronghold for the blanket peatlands, and the flow country is probably the best example of an oceanic blanket bog in the world. We also have very important raised bogs, including some of the best raised bogs in Europe. We are therefore the centre of attention for those two habitats.

On expertise and advice, there is a strong network of academics across Germany and Europe who are largely involved with the IPCC work. We already have that coalition.

Wetlands International operates beyond Europe. There are 175 peatland nations in the world, and there are blanket bogs up in the mountains of some African countries. That is an amazing habitat.

Asia is the big resource of deep peat. There are huge problems with losses and damage to peatlands there. It is interesting that the techniques that we have learned in Scotland to restore peatlands are being applied in places such as China. I have seen one of our textbooks being used in the field in China to repair gullies that have appeared in its peatlands. There is a big opportunity for the exchange of scientific and accounting information from us to other countries.

Wetlands International, the IUCN and the IPCC on the carbon side are gathering intelligence and expertise. There is a big recognition across the Ramsar convention that it is a matter of multiple objectives. It is not just carbon that the IPCC is interested in; it is the biodiversity side and water as well.

Those are the main organisations that are trying to share information across the world.

What you said about expertise was interesting. That is yet another area of potential for Scotland in terms of academic expertise that can be exported or that we can seek to exploit. I do not know what availability there is for courses or otherwise in that regard in our universities, but if Asia, for example, has a particular problem, then countries there might be interested in having their students come to Scotland to obtain the necessary expertise that they could then take back to their own countries. I do not know whether I am reinventing the wheel in this regard, but it could be a growth area for the Scottish tertiary sector.

That is not reinventing the wheel. You are inventing the wheel with that very good suggestion. Perhaps we have underplayed in the report the role that we could play in working with other countries to help address the restoration issues that Clifton Bain has described. We could deploy not only the science, but our management and know-how. We should think about that more in terms of forging alliances. We should think about the Nordic countries in that regard, because we have some good working ties there. We could mutually gain a lot from working with one another. I know that Mike Billett does a lot of collaborative research.

As a research scientist, I work with peatland scientists in Canada, Finland and Sweden and I supervise PhD students outside the United Kingdom. The peatland community, particularly those working in the northern hemisphere, is very together in terms of its research. We also bring in scientists from other countries to work in our universities and research sites, which have an increasingly high international profile. It is all very positive and the community is cohesive. I agree that there are some scientific communities that are perhaps not as cohesive but, collectively, the peatland group is very strong in Scotland and the United Kingdom.

When we started this programme three years ago, part of the reason the money was given for it was a frustration among land managers and policy people about conflicting and confusing science coming at them. I hope that what we have achieved through the inquiry is a way of setting the policy agenda and the land managers’ agenda so that the scientists have something to focus on and we get a much more consensual knowledge-exchange approach as opposed to just seeing a lot of information. We have learned a lesson about how to go forward. If we have a clear direction and objectives, the scientific community can help with delivery. Without that clarity, there is only a minefield of odd information. That is an important lesson if we want action.

Scotland’s peat is currently reckoned to hold carbon that is equivalent to 100 times our annual emissions. If we implemented the kind of balanced restoration programme that we have been talking about, to what extent could the peatlands’ storage capacity be enhanced over five, 10, 15 or 20 years and at what sort of cost?

We must do two things. First, we must keep our peatlands sucking carbon out of the atmosphere—that is the sequestration job. We have a legacy of damaged peatlands as a result of the drainage and damage that was done from the 1930s through to the 1970s. Those damaged peatlands are emitting vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Repairing and restoring them would potentially bring us—we have used mid-estimate figures, but it varies—around 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare. That is equivalent to one household’s annual emissions per hectare of peatland that we restore. Once we have restored it, we then start to get an additional benefit from what it is sequestering.

If we secured 100,000 hectares of peatland restoration, that would be 100,000 households’ annual emissions saved from going into the atmosphere. The point is that we must do that restoration anyway, for our biodiversity objectives, and there are water benefits as well. The cost of the restoration will vary, depending on the degree of damage to the peatland. The majority of our peatlands are in the slightly damaged category, so restoration would cost £100 to £300 per hectare; for really damaged peatland, the cost would be £1,000 to £2,000 per hectare.

I will make a guesstimate across the peatland resource. If we delivered our 600,000 hectare target, with the majority of it at the lower end of restoration costs, we are looking at a cost of £120 million to deliver the target over the next 10 years, which is £12 million a year. We are not asking for brand new money to deliver this, because peatland restoration hits so many different objectives—rural affairs, the common agricultural policy budget and agri-environment spend. There is an opportunity to take £5 million per year for the restoration of peatlands.

We should look at what local authorities contribute. On the lowland bogs, a lot of communities want local authority support to deliver their climate change objectives, which would be another couple of million pounds. Scottish Water has obligations and a sustainable land management fund, which is putting £2 million to £3 million into such activity. We have heard that the wind farm companies are putting in £1 million or £2 million. There are other private business interests and the carbon market side of things could bring in peatlands, and although we have that for woodlands, I will be frank and say that it is several years off for peatlands. However, that too could bring in a few million pounds.

The point is that that £12 million rapidly reduces, and if the climate change budget within rural affairs gives a fair chunk, you have the £12 million. What is wrong is that there is no clear signal about how that money should be spent. We do not want peatlands to detract from house insulation or other environmental priorities, but this task needs to be done and we need that money to be brought in.

The other opportunity—I am sure that Des Thompson has more experience of this—is to bring in European money against that spend. We know that the next round of CAP will give strong priority to carbon, climate change benefits, water and biodiversity, and peatlands are a clear winner there. There is also funding through the EU’s financial instrument for the environment—LIFE+. There are opportunities to bring that money back. As I say, we could look at private business initiatives and ways of drawing in the private sector in future. The conclusion is that it is not so scary.

The inquiry analysed whether peatland restoration is cost-effective. DEFRA gave the social cost of carbon as around £250 for every tonne of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It costs about £13 per tonne of carbon dioxide to save peatlands. That is cost-effective.

A further point is that there are job opportunities. We hear evidence from the flow country that, when restoration started, the number of jobs on the estate was bumped up from four or five to 13. As we said earlier, there is the opportunity to deliver multiple objectives.

I am conscious of the time.

I have just a short question. I know that peat is being extracted from 23 active sites, six of which give peat for energy sources and whisky, and 20,000 tonnes of peat are cut for fuel. In 1990, the peatland campaign consortium wanted to ban the use of peat in compost but we can still find it in compost. Do you have any concerns about that? What action can be taken to reduce the peat content in compost?

Most horticultural peat comes from lowland raised bogs because it is neither practical nor suitable to take peat from blanket bogs. The horticultural peat industry has targeted a very rare type of peatland.

The committee discussed waste earlier, and Scotland has an opportunity to base its horticultural industry on peat alternatives. Several new companies are forming in Scotland and making alternatives using waste products such as garden compost and food waste. They are making workable and approved products that will mean that we will not have to use peat in our gardens. Those products are available for sale now. That seems to be the future.

There are, however, many existing outstanding planning consents on lowland raised bogs. In England, a lot of companies are being paid by the Government to leave the peatlands, and it would be a shame if they came up to Scotland as the softer option. We will have to look at the question. The inquiry concluded that there are clearly more sustainable ways forward for the horticultural industry than relying on peat.

12:30

Just to be clear, we still have concerns about some large firms and parts of the horticultural industry that are using peat in soil. That is simply not sustainable.

On a point of clarification, peat extraction is, like any other element of the land-use chain, already part of the IPCC accounting process.

In my previous life as a primary school teacher, Braehead moss was out the back of my school. I was just wondering how, as well as raising water, we might raise awareness of this issue and how, aside from the educational aspects, we can ensure that communities form a connection with bogs such as Langlands moss that are being protected and enhanced.

Last week, the Scottish Wildlife Trust launched its lowland raised bog assessment. In surveying the majority of the raised bog resource, it found not only that 90 per cent of it was damaged but that 90 per cent of the landowners in those areas would be happy for the bogs to be restored. On top of that, we invited in a group of community interests from Fife and the central belt—including from Langlands—that have been actively involved in restoring the peatland, putting up information boards and putting out boardwalks. Although they have been raising money to deliver all that and are getting help from local authorities, they wanted technical support and support from agencies and non-governmental organisations to draw in money and, when they explained the situation, they found that people were interested.

We knew that trying to sell bogs would be a challenge; however, although it will never be the most interesting issue, we find that when we explain the benefits to people they become interested. An awareness-raising element is crucial, but there is a receptive audience out there. Resources are being developed for schoolchildren; for example, various films are available and in certain initiatives children are being taken on to the bogs of the UK’s national parks. As part of the next phase of its peatland programme, the IUCN wants to gear up that awareness raising; indeed, the Hutton Institute has created some amazing characters to convey the dynamics of peat soils. The issue is crucial and there is a willingness to take it forward, but I have been overwhelmed by the community interest in some of the local sites that they are trying to protect.

Interestingly, we think that, in refreshing the Scottish biodiversity strategy, we probably need to consider a step change in the way local communities are involved in peatland restoration. Clifton Bain is absolutely right; when you go to the peatlands and chat to the people involved, you find that they are enthusiastic individuals. Of course, such activity is very good for people’s health as well as helping them to connect with nature, and I think that we should push this particular issue very hard.

It also gives local authorities an opportunity to engage. After all, they are a starting point for these communities.

I will try to round things up with this question. I note from the IUCN commission’s report that there is a need to create a peatland carbon code as a focus for people to link their community, businesses and agencies with the potential in that respect. How would such a code be drawn up and who would do it?

DEFRA is looking at the general issue of payment for ecosystem services, and the IUCN has agreed that its peatland programme will pursue the specific issue of peatlands and a peatland carbon code. That code will have many audiences; for example, those with an interest in the carbon market will need it to give comfort to that market. The code will also need science in order to know what numbers to apply and certain policy processes to ensure that peatland is protected for the long term, that someone else does not come along and drain it again and that various other accounting matters are taken into account. That will all take some time.

An early job for the peatland carbon code is to give the comfort that restoring peatlands is good for climate change, which will mean that businesses that may not necessarily be interested in markets and trading their carbon but may just want to do some good work for climate change will know that it is an important activity. A code will help in that way, initially. That must be augmented by Government saying that restoring peatlands is an important job, because we know that, if business is to invest money in peatlands, it needs some reward, and knowing that Government values such work will help with that.

The code will have a very gentle initial outcome. We hope to have the start of a code by the start of 2013. It will grow and mature to be something that a carbon market could benefit from in a few years’ time.

Before I move on to my second point, Graeme Dey has a small supplementary.

It is just a brief question, rather than a supplementary.

How complete a register of Scotland’s peatlands do we have? Is it broken down by local authority area? What form does it take?

We have that. There is, for example, a peatland inventory on the SNH website, which is broken down into fens, raised bogs and blanket bogs. A lot of that information is also available on the Scotland’s environment website, and the local authorities have it.

Are you confident that it covers 100 per cent of Scotland’s peatlands?

It does not cover 100 per cent of the peatlands, but it is as complete as it can be.

We have the benefit of having with us Pete Smith, who has been involved in work on peatlands on a global level, which is excellent. The development of the guidelines that the IPCC is drawing up will be critical to the international efforts. Would you like to bring us up to date with where we have got to since the gathering in January and what the next steps are?

Okay. I am not working on those guidelines, although I will act as an expert reviewer for them.

When it was agreed in Durban that wetlands management would be a fifth electable activity under article 3.4 of the Kyoto protocol—to use the legalese—to go along with the four existing electable activities of cropland management, grazing land management, revegetation and forest management, it was recognised that there needed to be good practice guidance for accounting for the changes in carbon stocks and for the greenhouse gas fluxes, so the process of developing the guidelines was initiated.

The guidelines will look very similar to the guidelines for the other land uses. They will be tiered. There will be simple emission factors that can be applied in countries—particularly developing countries—that do not have the capacity to go out and measure, and which do not have good data to use. There will be tier 2 methods, whereby it will be possible to substitute in your regional estimates of your emission factors, and there will be tier 3 methods, which are used in many developed and industrialised countries, where we have the science and the activity data to support them.

The first draft of those guidelines is complete and they are currently out for expert review. The expert reviewers will feed back and the guidelines will, I understand, be revised later this year. At that point, we should be looking at getting some accepted guidance that can be put forward to be adopted by the Governments next year.

Thank you very much for that. You have whetted our appetites on a subject that few of our members knew a lot about. Our inquiry has a long way to go. We will take more evidence, and I guess that we will see some of you gentlemen again. Thank you very much for taking part in this introductory session. I hope that you feel that the questions were such that we got to some of the roots of the issues.

I remind members that we will have a private meeting afterwards. There will be no formal meeting of the committee next week, but we expect to have two private, informal sessions with SNH and possibly with SEPA. I look forward to seeing members then.

Meeting closed at 12:39.