Peat Mining Action

Thorne Moor and Hatfield Moor are two massive areas of peaty land near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, covering an area of land the size of a small city. There are several factors that should help in their conservation. The moors are a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a designation given to around 6,000 places in the UK that hold rare wildlife and ecosystems. The European Union is pushing for a new batch of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), and the UK hasn't nominated enough places; the EU has suggested more peat moors. But the UK authorities are not being quick to give such designation to Hatfield and Thorne Moors. Why could this be?

A large part of the moors is licensed by Scotts UK Ltd, a company who drain the moor of its water and then strip the peat for use in bags of compost for domestic gardeners. Brands like Levington's and Miracle-Gro get their peat from this area. If the moors SAC status the peat stripping will have to stop. And the large American corporation that owns Scotts will get pissed off. In 1990 the US government banned peat extraction from a site in New Jersey, but the ban has still not been implemented because of legal action by Scotts. Soon there will be no peat left to argue about.

Similarly, Scotts are using every legal trick they can to delay Thorne and Hatfield moors getting SAC status, and all the time more and more peat is being removed from this colossal area, and less and less remains that is worth conserving. In 3-5 years time the peat will be gone. It's thought that Scotts will then apply to mine gravel from under the peat. The peripheral areas of the moors are managed by English Nature, who are encouraging the regeneration of the rare and diverse ecosystem of the moors. However, regeneration requires the water-table to be kept as high as possible. The commercial extraction of peat requires the peat to be as dry as possible. Thus, Scotts are draining the moor; much of the regeneration land is separated from the commercially used land by large drainage ditches! There has been local campaigning against the peat stripping for many years, more recently supported by regional Friends of The Earth groups. Both parties feel that time is rapidly running out and we have to get a bit more active.

On Saturday 26th May around 50 people marched up the mile-long approach road to Scotts. We came in an assortment of fancy dress from big Sesame Street style furry monsters to a giant-flowerpotted Bill And Ben. We brought dozens of letters from people in the surrounding villages. The police said that two people could give the letters to a foreman. This was ignored and we went and occupied the peat processing works. The police vainly tried to stop the occupation, with a particularly rough handling of Ben the Flowerpot Man, who protested at such police discrimination ('you leave the white man alone and persecute the Flowerpot Man, you racist').

There was dancing to mandolin and fiddle among the halted machinery, while several of the group went for wanders out of sight to see what mischief could be done. The police said to the main group, 'we don't mind you being here, we're just concerned that those who've gone astray may come to some harm'. Yeah right. If they didn't mind us being there why did one of the coppers throw Ben the Flowerpot Man against a cop car to stop him coming in? What they meant was, 'we can't stop you being here, and if we show that we don't like it then it admits you're in control of the situation, and we're coppers and we always have to look like we're in control so if we can't change something then we have to say we want it like that'. Power-scheming scumbags.

Work was stopped at the plant for an hour or two, and the sole entrance was blockaded for half a day. There was very much a feeling that this is a beginning; an upping of the campaign for those involved, and the beginning of a new phase of direct action against peat stripping.

There's to be a mass trespass on the Scotts site at the end of June (probably Tuesday 26th). For those who can't come but support the campaign, Friends of The Earth have produced leaflets to give out at garden centres and DIY shops explaining why people should avoid peat compost. A superb spoof of the Miracle-Gro bag ('Miracle-Gone') is featured on some of them.

The issue spreads far wider than the vast expanses of Thorne and Hatfield Moors. Even if we're successful at there, the problem is certainly not solved. The real issue is commercial use and sale of peat, and so the leafleting of garden centres is, if anything, more important than direct action at Hatfield Moor. There are plenty of brands that are clearly marked 'peat-free'. Sensitive to this awareness, Scotts do not mention the inclusion of peat on their packaging, and use terms like 'multipurpose', which actually means 'peat-based'.

The Scotts plant at Hatfield Moor also processes peat from Ireland, where vast areas of land, and the life they sustain, are also being ruined forever. One of the brands is called Shamrock! Using an Irish icon to sell the ruination of Irish land! It reminded me of the cartoons of smiling cows that sell butter, ice cream and milk.

And once England, Ireland and Scotland has lost its peat, eyes will turn to imports from Eastern Europe and Russia.

Peat soil provides unique ecosystems, and once the expanses of peat are gone, so to goes the wildlife they support. Peat takes thousands of years to develop, and the commercial extraction threatens to take it all in a matter of decades. And it is largely done for garden compost. It is madness that we create a huge environmental problem by filling massive landfill sites with kitchen and garden waste that give off methane (a greenhouse gas) and pollute water courses, while at the same time creating another environmental problem by stripping colossal areas of their precious peat soil to enrich our gardens.

If we simply composted our kitchen and garden waste, we'd need no commercial compost and stop much of the polluting done by landfill sites. Composting takes almost no effort (certainly less than driving to a garden centre and lugging a big sack of peat). Aside of the issues of ethics and sustainability, the solution is actually far easier than perpetuating the problem.