Short abstract:

Rewetting of degraded peatlands is increasingly pursued as a solution for net-zero transitions with hopes placed on private capital to rapidly scale-up peat restoration. This paper explores the politics of knowledge inherent in the creation of new peat-based carbon economies in the south of the UK.

Long abstract:

This paper explores the emergent practices of knowledge production directed towards the creation of a carbon-based economic model for peatland restoration. ​​Globally, peatlands hold more than twice as much carbon as all forests but, at the same time, emissions from historically-drained peatlands remain strikingly high. Against this backdrop, a diverse range of organisations are experimenting with rewetting degraded peatlands as a potentially powerful form of climate change mitigation and an essential component of ‘net zero’ transitions. In the UK, visions of scaled-up peatland restoration are increasingly placing hopes on voluntary carbon markets to bridge the funding gap between public finance and ambitious restoration goals.

This paper studies the politics of knowledge surrounding efforts to create new carbon-based peat economies drawing on research conducted on two sites in the south of the UK. More specifically, we explore how conservation organisations work to trial and showcase the technical and economic viability of carbon finance in the context of intensively managed agricultural land vulnerable to flooding. These trials involve a diverse range of monitoring techniques, deployed to demonstrate the success of restoration interventions, and thereby ostensibly validate the resulting carbon credits. The paper explores how the production of data on the ground and speculative carbon finance mechanisms are brought together to convince local farmers to commit their lands to rewetting. How is data generated, selected, obfuscated, and valorized in the making of new carbon-based peat economies?