The Campaign for Peatland Justice
Peatlands store vast carbon, support biodiversity, and protect water systems. Yet peat extraction destroys them. Learn why peatlands matter and why switching to peat-free soils is vital for climate and nature.
Michelle Tylicki
Peatland Justice (2025)
Illustration, mixed media
Have you ever touched peat? It’s thick and dark like a rich chocolate brownie. The carbon density of it is perceivable -practically a young, living coal. The extraction and destruction of the peat biome releases such vast amounts of carbon, that peatland protection should be high on every climate campaigner’s list. Channelling our inner bog witch, we must amplify the frog call to protect this immensely important wetland biome.Artist Text: Bethany Copsey (RE-PEAT) and Silvia Kay (TNI)
Illustration: Michelle Tylicki
Design: Karen Paalman
What are peatlands and why do they matter?
Peatlands are unique ecosystems formed over thousands of years, made of layer upon layer of plant matter which is unable to fully decompose due to the large amounts of water.
This makes peatlands vital stores of carbon: peatlands cover just 3% of the world’s land surface but store 30% of all terrestrial carbon. Intact peatlands remove and store carbon from the atmosphere, locking it away for millennia. Altogether, the carbon they store is twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests.
Peatlands are biodiversity hotspots, serving as refuges for rare and threatened species as well as a crucial habitat for migratory birds. They also carry immense cultural and social value, preserving archaeology and paleoecology, sustaining livelihoods, supporting mental wellbeing, and inspiring art and literature. And they are vital water regulators, storing rainfall and releasing it slowly to prevent floods, droughts, and water pollution.
In sum, the protection of peatlands is vital for people, other creatures, and the planet.
What is peat extraction and what damage does it cause?
Peatlands are currently mined on a huge-scale to be used as substrate and potting soil for the horticultural, hobby gardening, and flower industry. Peat became a go-to potting soil ingredient during the boom of industrial agriculture in the 1900s. Policies pushed for mass production, and peat was the perfect enabler. It was cheap, predictable, great at holding water, and free of pathogens.
The extraction process has major environmental consequences, though releasing carbon into the atmosphere, habitat destruction, and increased flood risk. These harmful impacts are felt locally and globally, while industry profits.
Europe is a big player: more than 80% of all global peat extraction takes place in Europe. And within Europe, there are massive disparities between where profits are made and where environmental destruction occurs. Huge amounts are extracted from the Baltics in particular and sold to companies in Western Europe including the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Key actors in the supply chain of peat are retail companies and supermarkets such as Ahold Delhaize and Albert Heijn. These actors continue to stock potting soils, potted plants, and herbs that contain peat, despite the huge environmental cost and despite their own sustainability pledges.
How does the peat industry use greenwashing to protect its profits?
The peat industry portrays extraction as harmless and necessary, using narratives that make peat sound abundant, renewable, and even climate-friendly. It suggests peatlands can simply be restored after mining and dismisses independent science that shows otherwise. These tactics mirror those of the fossil fuel industry: exaggerating future solutions, downplaying present harm, and sowing doubt to delay change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the main UN intergovernmental body on climate policy and science - classifies peat as a fossil resource and warns its use is incompatible with climate goals. Peat takes thousands of years to form, releases huge amounts of carbon when mined, and cannot be replaced within human timescales.
Protecting peatlands is therefore essential - greenwashing only serves to shield destructive practices.
A peat-free future is already here
The destructive extraction and trade in peat must end. We need systemic solutions. Individual consumer action and voluntary phase-outs are not enough to stop industrial extraction and hold industries accountable.
We urgently need to move away from using peat for potting soil. In fact, it’s long overdue!
Using peat-free soil is one of the easiest ways we can have a positive impact on our climate through the retained carbon held within peatlands which is released during the extraction and production of peat-containing potting soils. Even more, it also benefits freshwater ecosystems, a wide array of creatures, and our connection with these vital ecosystems.
And the truth is: we already have the alternatives. Gardeners and growers are proving every day that materials like composted green waste, wood fibre, bark, and lead mulch can grow strong, healthy plants without destroying peatlands. Some retailers and producers are already committing to peat-free products, showing that a different path is not only possible but practical.
What’s missing is the will - from governments and corporations - to scale up these solutions, set clear timelines, stop hiding behind greenwashed excuses, and provide real support for those who need it most in the transition, from small-scale growers to agroecological producers.
A peat-free future is not a dream: it’s already happening. The faster we make the switch, the more carbon we keep in the ground, the more species we protect, and the more resilient our communities will be.
From peat-free to system change
The Peatland Justice campaign spearheded by RE-PEAT - a youth-led collective active across Europe mobilising for the protection of peatlands - supported by TNI and other allies is pushing for a phase-out and ban on peat extraction for the horticultural industry.
We believe that this can be a catalyst towards even greater systemic change, if we do it in a just way. It can be more than simply a switch in product; it can have knock-on effects across our entire food system!
We want a horticultural system based on three principles of regenerative peat-free soil:
Ecological: local, renewable, circular
Effective: reliable, available
Fair: living wage, transparent, affordable
The fight for Peatland Justice needs your support!
Join us in demanding Peatland Justice which means ending extraction, challenging false narratives, and building alternatives rooted in ecology and solidarity.
Find out more information about RE-PEAT and the campaign for Peatland Justice and how you can join here.
Download and disseminate our beautiful poster on Peatland Justice with illustrations by Michelle Tylicki and design work by Karen Paalman.
Writers and artists:
Bethany Copsey is a writer, soil scientist, environmental activist, creative practitioner, and campaign ccoordinator. She co-founded RE-PEAT(external link), a collective which works to counter the long-held notions of wetlands as wastelands and instead inspire new narratives and co-creations that recognise them as culturally and ecologically vital environments. Bethany is a graduate of the Sandberg Institute Master’s programme, Planetary Poetics(external link), co-initiated by Framer Framed.
Sylvia Kay joined TNI in 2011 as a researcher and project coordinator working on issues related to agrarian and environmental justice, food systems, land and natural resource politics.
Michelle Tylicki is an activist and interdisciplinary artist whose subversive work challenges systems of power, amplifies marginalized voices, and envisions a lush, just future of planetary kinship. Her art spans satirical graphic design critiquing advertising (subvertising), campaign illustration for grassroots collectives and NGOs, and short films and animations exploring direct action and systemic change.
Karen Paalman is a graphic designer graduating from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1996. She designs and creates illustrations and infographics on commission for organizations that are committed to creating a better world.
