Former Environment Secretary, Theresa Villiers MP, has welcomed the publication of a consultation on banning the retail sale of peat for horticulture. Earlier this year, she tabled a Parliamentary question to Ministers asking when this long-awaited document would be published.
“Peatlands are the UK’s equivalent to the rainforest. They are our largest terrestrial carbon store, a haven for rare wildlife, and a record of our past. They also provide natural flood defences and supply a quarter of the our drinking water. But as Ministers acknowledge in their Peat Action Plan published earlier this year, these landscapes have been taken for granted for too long. Only 13% of England’s peatlands are in a near natural state.”
“I have visited many peatland areas over the years, including in Northern Ireland during my time as Secretary of State. If we are going to have any chance of tackling climate change and biodiversity loss, we must do more to protect peat landscapes. For example, we are stewards here in the UK of 20% of the world’s blanket bogs. This is a precious natural resource which we need to safeguard for future generations.”
“We need to end the use of peat in horticulture. Voluntary targets have been in place for a decade, aimed at ending this practice in amateur gardening by 2020 and in professional horticulture by 2030. Although some progress has been made, the voluntary approach has not delivered the improvement that was hoped for.”
“So I welcome this consultation on measures to ban retail selling of peat and peat products. As always with new regulation, we will need to take care to avoid unintended consequences. Potential exemptions for scientific purposes need to be considered. We also need the Government to work with professional growers to improve access to sustainable alternatives to peat so that a path can be set towards reducing or ending its use in commercial horticulture.”
Theresa Villiers is encouraging her constituents to send they views in to the consultation on how we get better at protecting our peatlands and providing gardeners with access to reasonably priced sustainable alternatives to peat products.
Details on how to do that can be found here.
