Unique CEE ecosystems under pressure because Western European gardeners will pay a lot for peat By Sarah Roe The silent wasteland of the Orava region, on the border between Slovakia and Poland, contains a much-coveted natural resource. These peatlands, chequered with sphagnum moss and shrubs, are home to some of the most endangered species in Europe. The boggy habitat attracts birds, such as the corncrake, one of Europe’s most vulnerable species, while rare butterflies and plants flourish in the damp undergrowth. Bears and wolves sometimes stalk over from surrounding forests, in search of red deer and other small mammals. Yet it is the economic value of the peat bog, which covers 100 hectares and stretches to a depth of five metres, that attracts locals. In the past, subsistence farmers shovelled small amounts of it onto their land to nourish poor quality farming soil. Now they hope to sell off the resource for hard currency exports to the West, where peat is used in the burgeoning horticulture industry. Peat cutting is virtually outlawed in most European Union countries because the peat bog, a dome of partially decomposed moss formed over 10,000 years, supports such rare wildlife. Peatlands also act as “sinks” that soak up carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, which is released if the peat is drained or damaged, thereby exacerbating the conditions that cause climate change. The United Kingdom has just 6 percent of its original peatlands left, and the Netherlands has dug up or drained all of its resource. Continued demand for the amateur gardener’s favourite ingredient means firms are looking to less-regulated Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) for their supply. Over the next decade, some of the last habitats of Europe’s rarest species are earmarked for peat cutting. Western companies have already begun exporting peat from the Baltic countries, particularly Estonia, where there are vast tracts of virgin bogland, a phenomenon that no longer exists in Western Europe. According to Alan Shaw at the British-based Peat Producers Association, up to 10 percent of the U.K.’s peat now comes from the Baltics, and the figure is expected to rise. “I think (imports from CEE) will grow, and I suspect the Baltic countries and Russia will become more important,” he says. Around a fifth of Estonia is covered in peat bogs, most of which have inadequate environmental protection. Over the next few years, peat cutting will be exhausted in the low-lying coastal regions, and firms are putting considerable pressure on the government to move on to untouched bogland, some of Europe’s last safe havens for wildlife. Peatlands in Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine are also particularly vulnerable. Once a peat bog is cut, the area is drained, which damages the delicate ecosystem. The surface lowers and becomes drier and the wildlife sustained on it begins to die off or leave. Since it takes thousands of years for the sphagnum moss - the basic material of a peat bog - to replenish, the animals, birds and plants are likely to never return. In Western Europe, intensive agricultural and building development drained much of the original peatland, and the peat cutting industry has devoured many of the remaining sites. Yet 40 years of communism helped to conserve many of the peat bogs in CEE. Lack of commercial development left them virtually untouched, and the wildlife supported by them has thrived. Elk still lurk in these ancient landscapes, and capercaillie grouse and spotted and white-tailed eagles swoop overhead. Conservationists hope they can strengthen protection throughout the region, while these bogs remain. In his modest office in Bratislava, Slovakia, surrounded by posters of rare species, Jan Seffer, director of Daphne Institute of Applied Ecology, voices conservationists’ frustration. “These countries are economically weak, so the temptation for local people to cooperate with peat companies is very, very strong. The same mistakes that were done in Western Europe are being repeated in Eastern Europe, and now we knowit was a mistake.” In addition to the horticulture industry, fuel companies are also eager to exploit the resource in CEE. Peatfuelled power stations — an inefficient and polluting energy source — might prove tempting to countries in the region that are trying to resolve energy shortages. “Peat power companies in Ireland and Finland are working very hard to persuade people in Estonia to buy their technology,” warns Richard Lindsay, a peatlands expert at University of East London. Environmentalists across Europe have joined forces to combat the threat to peat bogs. Wetlands International, an organisation focusing on wetland habitats, has funded the Central European Peatlands Project, which aims to prepare an inventory of all the peat bogs in the region. The British government has also financed a training programme, through its Darwin Initiative, for experts in the 17 countries of CEE. Locals were invited to Scotland to learn from restoration and conservation work carried out on its peatlands. “They were shocked when they saw our peat bogs, because our sites are so degraded,” remembers Stuart Brooks, one of six organisations running the programme. Staff at Daphne are currently negotiating with locals in Orava, who claim ownership of the land, to restore and conserve a small area of the peat bog, while the rest will be sold off. They are also working with other private landowners, who bought back peat areas elsewhere after the collapse of communism in 1989, to maintain protection of the rare habitats. In the long term, protecting peat bogs will probably save more money than cutting them up. Viera Stanova, deputy director at Daphne, remembers visiting a workshop in the Netherlands, where conservationists were attempting to rejuvenate a peat bog: “They have destroyed all their boglands and now spend a huge amount of money to restore something. It was basically a lake, and they said they hope that in around 100 years there will be some initial processes in the creation of bogs.” If habitats in CEE are to be saved from commercial development, gardeners in Western Europe must act responsibly, too. According to Shaw at the Peat Producers’ Association, companies are simply reacting to a large consumer market for peat-based products. “In the biggest sector, the growing materials used for patio containers, hanging baskets and so on, peat alternatives have not performed very well,” he says. Consumer demand, however, might change if compost manufacturers were legally obliged to state whether products contain peat, and if there was better public awareness of the damage caused by peat cutting. Then the demand for developing new and better peat-free alternatives would likely grow.

Photo: Estonian Fund for Nature HARD TO REPLACE: It took nature about 10,000 years to make this peat bog in Estonia, but it could all be taken away to meet the demand of home gardeners, who like to mix peat moss in with their soil.