Carbon Futures in the Mire? Knowledge Controversies in the Remaking of European Peatlands for Climate Mitigation

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• James Palmer (Bristol)
• Tuesday 11 March 2025, 13:00-14:00
• Department of Geography, Small Lecture Theatre.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Tom Fry.

In Europe, vast swathes of peatland have historically been drained for agriculture, forestry or mining, generating significant greenhouse gas emissions. Scientific and policy interest in peat restoration as a “natural climate solution” is therefore growing rapidly, spawning diverse projects that aim either to stabilise carbon already stored in peatlands, or more ambitiously to reactivate peat-building for carbon sequestration. Drawing from resource geography, science and technology studies, and environmental history, this paper contends that peatlands should be understood as “peatscapes”—landscapes characterised not merely by ecological complexity and heterogeneity, but also by longstanding conflicts between different ways of knowing, living and working with peat itself. To illustrate the value of a “peatscapes” approach, the paper draws on expert interviews and empirical fieldwork conducted in the Somerset Levels and the East Anglian Fens to illuminate knowledge controversies provoked by peatland restoration on three levels: 1) ontological controversies linked to divergent understandings of the nature and value of peat; 2) metrological controversies hindering emergent peatland restoration science; and 3) resource-making controversies arising from efforts to dovetail restoration with economic value generation. Overall, the paper argues that carbon-based restoration agendas do not supersede, but rather selectively rework foundational ideas about peatlands, thereby intensifying long-lived controversies about these ephemeral landscapes.

This talk is part of the Political Ecology Group meetings series.

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