April 11, 2017— In the far north of Scotland, an unusual conservation project is underway: the systematic removal of millions of trees. While tearing down forests is generally a bad thing, at the RSPB Forsinard Flows Nature Reserve it is essential to restoring one of the most important ecosystems on the planet. Peatland blanket bogs have been absorbing carbon dioxide (CO
2) from the atmosphere for thousands of years. In this one area of Scotland, the peatlands store an estimated 400 million tons of CO
2—which is more than double the amount of CO
2 stored in all of the United Kingdom’s forests put together.
But in the 1980s, tree plantations began buying up the peatlands in order to grow timber. They planted millions of trees and drained the peatlands of water, causing the peat to break apart and release CO
2 back into the atmosphere. It’s estimated that losing just 4 percent of the CO
2 that is stored in this peatland would equal Scotland’s combined household and industrial carbon emissions.
Though it will take decades for the peatlands to be fully restored, the team at Forsinard Flows Nature Reserve works year round to do just that.
Read about the Scottish Moorlands in National Geographic magazine
