New guide for gardeners to go peat-free and help wildlife at home

10th May 2023

The Wildlife Trusts have unveiled a new handbook to help people go peat-free in their gardens and to recognise the importance of peatlands for nature and climate.

Last August, the government announced that the sale of peat compost to amateur gardeners will be banned by the end of 2024. As this is 18 months away, The Wildlife Trusts are urging people to make the switch to peat-free gardening now.

Kent Wildlife Trust, share the disappointment of The Wildlife Trusts, that the ban on commercial use of peat will not happen fully until 2030.

The new handbook, Greener Gardening: Perfecting Peat-Free provides tips and tricks for getting the most out of compost, a guide for making compost at home, and information about buying peat-free products.

Peatlands are the UK’s biggest terrestrial carbon-store, as well as providing vital habitat for wildlife. Research by The Wildlife Trusts revealed that extraction for use in horticulture has caused up to 31 million tonnes of CO2 to be released since 1990.

Kent Wildlife Trust, Director of Conservation Paul Hadaway said: “We are calling on a ban on all peat-based products by 2030, the harvesting of peat is incredibly damaging to the environment and climate.

“Peatlands across the UK lock up about 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and we are losing that a rate of 20 million tonnes a year, at a time when we should try to lock up more, not less.

“In addition to the ban, we can restore and protect sites like Ham Fen, this site alone has been restored over the last 20 years by re-wetting it. We have locked up about 65,000 tonnes of carbon in that period so it has returned massive gains for both biodiversity and the climate.

“We need to see more restoration at scale and proper protection of these peatlands, not just in the upland areas, but actually in lowland England where these little pockets, like Ham Fen, remain. We can be doing active things to re-wet them, to not only bring biodiversity back but, really importantly, tackle those twinned crises of the nature and climate in one.”

Sara Booth-Card, peatlands campaigner for The Wildlife Trusts, added: “Buying or making sustainable, peat-free compost is an easy way for gardeners to help nature and the climate. This free guide provides lots of useful information to help people transition to peat-free gardening this year.

“Peatlands have some of the quirkiest plants and animals found in the UK. They include insect devouring plants like sundews, camouflaged golden plover chicks that look like little pom-poms and sphagnum moss that can hold 20 times its own weight in water. UK peatlands store more carbon than all the forests in the UK, France and Germany combined. The nature and climate crises mean we must do some things differently, including gardening without peat.”

The Wildlife Trusts are continuing to call upon the UK Government to: 

Ban the extraction and commercial trade of peat immediately 
Ban all horticultural uses of peat as soon as parliamentary timeframes allow, or by 2024 at the latest 
Restore all bogs damaged by the removal of peat by 2030

The Wildlife Trusts are leading peatland restoration projects across the UK and have restored over 50,000 hectares of peatland in England alone. Working with partners and landowners, there are short term plans to repair a further 20,000 hectares.