'More important than rainforests': UK pioneers peat partnership
On a windswept hillside in a remote corner of northern England, a peatland restoration plan pooling public and private money is underway which proponents claim provides a model for climate change mitigation.
Deploying a tank-like vehicle, helicopter, digger and a dozen-strong team building dams and other defences, the "Ridge Graham" project will return the site to its original waterlogged state, locking in carbon dioxide (CO2).
Currently, the 450 hectares (1,112 acres) of peatland by draining—the size of 840 football fields—and others like it in Britain and beyond are releasing greenhouse gases (GHGs), hindering efforts to go net-zero within decades.
The venture will use nascent carbon markets but is groundbreaking in England because it is the first time a company, rather than an NGO or charity, has also received public funds to restore privately-owned peatland.
"Peatland restoration is incredibly expensive and so... you need to find something that makes it economically viable," explained Betsy Glasgow-Vasey of Ridge Carbon Capture (RCC).
The Oxfordshire-based "nature-based solutions" developer is delivering the scheme—with the help of an £813,000 ($975,000) grant from government agency Natural England—and has a dozen other peatland projects in the pipeline.
Using transplanted heather, workers undertake the gruelling task wherever gaps exist on the vast terrain.