Climate Change: The Role Of Protected Areas In Mitigating And Adapting To Change

Britain's peat ecosystems have long been regarded as little more than wastelands: not much good for agriculture, until recently a source of poor quality fuel for crofters in Scotland and often simply set aside for hunting. It is no coincidence that Britain's first national park, the Peak District, is made up largely of unwanted peat; an ecosystem further battered by soot and acid-rain pollution from surrounding industrial cities, which has eliminated many native plant species (Dudley, 1987). Solitary walks across Kinder Scout and the aptly named Bleaklow and Black Hill gave me both my first taste of the concept of wilderness and my first real understanding of how badly we have undermined our ecology. Yet all this could change. Peat is recognized as the ecosystem that stores more carbon than any other and is thus a potentially critical tool in mitigating climate change. It also plays a fundamental role in storing and releasing water, and therefore mediating seasonal groundwater and surface flows, but only if it is managed properly: the balance of greenhouse gas emissions and sequestration in peat is delicate and easily upset so that inappropriately managed peat can quickly become a net carbon emitter, which is probably the case in the Peak District. New projects are springing up around the country to improve management of peat, which invariably means introducing a form of management involving a great deal of protection. The economic value of the Peak District's uplands may be on the rise again.