Peatland restoration on Shetland farms and crofts
Crofting communities play a key role in looking after
Scotland’s rural landscapes. How can peatland
restoration be of interest and of benefit for crofts and small farms?
Addressing this question is important for the development of policy to support
participation in peatland restoration on a broader scale.
We conducted research aimed at improving our understanding
of perceptions regarding peatland management, barriers to peatland restoration,
and options for addressing the barriers. The research focuses on the Shetland
Islands, Scotland, where greenhouse gas emissions from Land use, land use
change and forestry (LULUCF) make up more than two thirds of overall net
emissions, largely due to emissions from peatlands which are often in degraded
condition. Therefore, addressing peatland management is key to meeting local
and national climate change targets. Specifically, there is a need to improve
the condition of peatlands through rewetting – often termed “peatland
restoration”.
Crofting and small farms dominate agricultural activity on
the Shetland Islands, offering opportunities and challenges to addressing
ongoing peatland degradation, for example in relation to managing common
grazing areas. While there are existing examples of successful peatland
restoration on land used for grazing, concurrent restoration activity takes
place primarily on wind energy project sites that form part of the energy
transition of the Islands and Scotland as a whole.
The objectives of our research were (i) to develop an
understanding of challenges to peatland restoration on land managed by crofters
and small farms; and (ii) to suggest possible pathways to mitigate the
challenges that should be considered. Towards this end, we conducted a mix of
informal interviews and semi-structured interviews with a wide range of
participants across decision-making on peatlands, including crofters, NGOs, landowners,
and community representatives.
In our study, we found that participating in peatland
restoration remains shrouded in uncertainty. We identify four main areas
through which this uncertainty exists (“barriers”). Firstly, the ongoing
changes to public funding criteria reduce trust in long term support, which is
essential for peatland restoration projects which do not guarantee benefits in
the short term. Secondly, the evolving policy backdrop such as agricultural
policy, as well as policy around carbon credit schemes have added to this uncertainty;
there is a lack of clarity around how such policies and financing schemes can
be of benefit to crofting communities, nor are there guarantees that they will
receive support if restoration projects don’t achieve the ecological impacts.
Thirdly the underlying lack of institutional trust in the policy changes that
are taking place as peatland restoration seems to reverse previous top-down
policies such as around headage payments on sheep flock densities. And lastly,
through focusing on the context of Shetland it was evident that policies must
pay attention to context-specificity when designing policies.
Drawing on the factors contributing to the above barriers,
we identify possible pathways forward for Scottish Government when trying to
incentivise and encourage increased participation of crofters and small farmers
in peatland restoration. These are:
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finding mechanisms to deliver agricultural
support payments that may be better aligned social and cultural values of the
land management sector;
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linking in restoration efforts as part of the
broader approach to ‘Island proofing’; and
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empowering decentralised delivery partners with
understanding of different context to allocate funding towards restoration
projects.
Overall, while peatland restoration offers huge potential for reducing LULUCF emissions alongside multiple other environmental benefits, encouraging communities to turn towards such activities requires changes to our social, political and economic systems, too. These changes, if taken, can shift towards a more just governance future for rural communities who would benefit materially and culturally from restored healthy peatlands.