Salford City Council has received a fresh planning application submitted by horticultural manufacturer William Sinclair, requesting permission to continue their illegal extraction of valuable peat from moss lands in Barton.
Peat bogs are increasingly rare habitats which are really good for a whole variety of wildlife like water voles, dragonflies, moths and butterflies. We should be caring for them and conserving them, not digging them up.
Peat bogs store carbon, thus helping to combat climate change whereas peat extraction releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global warming.
We should not allow activities that are bad for global warming to continue when there are viable alternatives. Peat extraction is unnecessary because there are now excellent alternatives to peat based composts available. We should be promoting these alternatives, not perpetuating the use of peat. Organisations like the National Trust, the Royal Horticultural Society and Kew Gardens all stopped using peat years ago.
Peat extraction runs counter to both local and national policies and will have a continuing devastating effect, not just on the biodiversity of the site, and neighbouring sites, but also on carbon emissions and climate change.
“Britain’s mosslands hold the carbon equivalent of 35 years of national carbon emissions” said Dr Chris Miller the Wildlife Trust’s Mosslands Project Manager. “If peat is dug up the carbon in the peat is oxidised and within a relatively short time it will all be in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This is why restoring mosslands can make such a big contribution to fighting climate change, but peat extraction is disastrous!”
Salford Green Party 