Petland seen as a ‘climate action trump card’
Peatland experts working together with the National Trust at Marsden Moor in West Yorkshire have found that the moor’s peat stores at least one million tonnes of carbon.
They say it’s further evidence that peatlands can play a crucial role in tackling climate change.
The moorland is sandwiched between the conurbations of Leeds and Manchester and has provided fresh air for generations of mill and office workers. It covers more than 5,500 acres.
The National Trust this week announced that there’s evidence that these windswept uplands hold between 1 to 1.5 million tonnes of carbon in their ‘millennia-old’ peat.
The charity adds that the data highlights the vital role that healthy blanket bogs play in the tackling the climate emergency.
It adds that the results show the importance of preserving and restoring the moorlands with the aim of preventing vast amounts of carbon being released into the atmosphere.
The carbon estimate was obtained by a team of researchers from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, led by palaeoecologist Dr Antony Blundell.
They worked together with nine dedicated community volunteers and Rangers from the National Trust to carry out an assessment of peat depths and stratigraphy (the make-up of different layers of peat which were created over time).
Calculating carbon storage
Across more than 100 days over a four-year period, the team measured the depth of the peat at 2,290 set locations across the entire Marsden Moor estate – covering nearly every hectare of the windswept moorlands.
This research provided an accurate estimate of the total amount of peat across the estate – around 21 million cubic tonnes. It allowed the team to calculate the amount of carbon stored as between 1 and 1.5 million tonnes.
This work followed on from a smaller study carried out in 2019, of a 350-hectare site known as Blakeley Clough in the Wessenden Valley on the moors, which found around 300,000 tonnes of carbon had been sequestered there.
Further studies are ongoing at 60 of the sample locations to analyse how bulk density and carbon content varies with location and depth, which will facilitate a more robust final site-wide carbon estimate.
‘A good carbon storage estimate is extremely important as it can illustrate the value of these moorlands and their role in mitigating climate change,’ explains Dr Antony Blundell, a senior researcher into peatlands at the University of Leeds.
‘The work of the volunteers has allowed us to gather much more data than we would normally have available – so we expect a really robust estimate of carbon storage to be derived from this project.’
As well as revealing the capacity of the peat for holding carbon, the team has been able to learn a lot more detail about how the peatlands were formed and their current condition.
Through some initial radiocarbon dating, they have confirmed that the peat started to form locally in some areas as early as 10,000 years ago and then spread from Mesolithic times, ‘blanketing’ the landscape.
Evidence of Stone Age fires
‘Peat on average forms at up to 1mm per year, and the deepest areas of peat discovered were over five metres deep,’ explains Dr Blundell.
‘In some locations, some depths showed evidence of Stone Age fires while other sites at other depths had evidence of ancient trees including pine and birch, and others again showed partially degraded vegetation.’
‘From these preliminary findings, we can begin to create a database of peat quality and constituents linked to the vegetation across the estate, which should be unique in the UK.’
‘Peat is like a book – once you can read it, you can understand the history of a place and how you might restore it.’
The need for moorland restoration is an urgent issue on a global scale. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) emissions from drained and damaged peatlands are a significant contributor to climate change.
‘Healthy peatlands are a ‘climate action trump card,’’ explains Tia Crouch, Peat Ecologist for the National Trust.
‘Our vision is to have all the degraded peatlands in our care under restoration by 2040 – aiding the recovery of peatland and the wildlife it supports and saving 140,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.’
‘We are making good progress towards this ambition with restoration underway across nearly 6,000 hectares since 2021.’
