The Flow Country in North Scotland

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The flow country is a vast open area in far north scotland that looks almost like the arctic tundra. The land is so saturated that there's very little oxygen, and it's really hard for plant matter to break down. In some parts of the floe country, the peat is now more than 30 feet deep.

A few years back, 99pi producer Emmett FitzGerald brought us a beautiful story about peat bogs. Peat is essential for biodiversity and for the climate – it is really, really good at storing carbon. But like a lot of things we cover on the show, peat often goes unnoticed, in part because it is literally out of sight underground. We’ve noticed peat and carbon sequestration more and more in the news lately. Journalists have been brilliantly covering stories about the tree planting movement, private ownership of Scotland’s bogs, and the threat to peat in the Congo Basin. Couple that with more extreme weather happening in more places, we thought it would be a good idea to repeat this story.

For the Love of Peat