Bid to restore 50,000 hectares of peatland around Glasgow

The wider Glasgow area is home to huge areas of peatland measuring 50,000 hectares – the size of North Lanarkshire.

But 80 per cent of peatland across Scotland is “degraded” – meaning it is releasing as much carbon into the environment as all the country’s homes.

The dried out peatland needs to be restored in order to capture carbon instead to help fight climate change, according to a report due to go in front of the Glasgow City Region Cabinet this week.

The cabinet are being recommended to approve a bid to formally launch the ‘Clyde Peatlands’ project in the Glasgow region.

Two new peatland officers are to be recruited to “drive forward peatland restoration” across the region.

A report said: “Healthy peatlands capture and store vast amounts of carbon and should play a critical part of the drive for net zero. However, degraded or dried out peat emits carbon rather than storing it and currently around 80 per cent of Scotland’s peatlands are degraded through drainage, extraction and urban expansion.

The report added: “This means that Scotland’s peatlands emit roughly the same amount of carbon each year as all of Scotland’s homes. Addressing this degradation has a major role to play not only in the drive for net zero, but in restoring a unique habitat that is home to an array of plants and animals.”

The newly hired peatland officers would be jointly managed by South Lanarkshire Council and the Green Network, with support from NatureScot.

The Clyde Peatlands project has been developed for Glasgow City Region by the GCV Green Network and supported by NatureScot’s Peatland Action Fund.

The Glasgow City Region covers Glasgow City, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire, East Dunbartonshire and West Dunbartonshire.