When he was five years old, Richard Lindsay disappeared. Having scoured the house, his mother found him in the garden, sitting under a cotoneaster bush and observing the wing structure of a blackbird.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As a child, the renowned peat expert was more interested in birds than plants or conservation. He even had a pet pigeon that hatched an egg under his bed. At school in Liverpool his classmates called him \u2018Nature Boy\u2019 and his biology master sent him on a young scientists\u2019 research programme that was to shape his life. \u201cIt involved a trip to the Shetland Islands, which I thought were in the Antarctic and sounded pretty interesting.\u201d In fact, Richard was sent to Foula, a peat-covered island over 100 miles north of mainland Scotland. \u201cThat trip really ignited my interest. I helped cut peat for the islanders\u2019 fires and to this day the smell of burning peat is tremendously evocative.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

He went on to study biological sciences at the University of East Anglia, specialising in ecology and conservation, and graduated in 1975. \u201cI went back to Liverpool in search of casual work and a\u00a0Mr Wilson at the employment exchange suggested I become a conservation ranger. Neither of us really knew what it involved. I was part of a group sent to the Lake District National Park to learn dry-stone walling, forestry and the like, but when the organisers noticed I had a degree in conservation they set me to work at the Nature Conservancy Council [NCC].\u201d<\/p>\n

PEATLANDS ARE THE CINDERELLA HABITAT \u2013 UNNOTICED AND UNDERVALUED \u2013 BUT THEY DO SO MUCH FOR US <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The remit of this government agency was to designate and manage national nature reserves and Richard was dispatched to survey the Duddon Valley. It was his first detailed study of a peatland and it proved to be an extraordinarily rich example. \u201cIt was tremendous \u2013 in fact it is now classified as a Special Area of Conservation \u2013 and turned me into the NCC peat expert for northwest England.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
As an accidental specialist in an emerging field, Richard came to the attention of NCC head office and, somewhat to his surprise, found himself walking to work at its London office past the crowds of punks who congregated on the King\u2019s Road in Chelsea. \u201cI\u2019d always sworn I would never live in London, but I loved it. I saw the dawn of punk rock but I also spent wet weeks analysing remote Scottish peat bogs a hard day\u2019s hike from the nearest road. Alternating between these two worlds made for a potent mix.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Above all, Richard was stimulated by the rapid rate of peatland destruction. Draining peat bogs for agricultural use began with the 18th-century Agrarian Revolution but accelerated after the Second World War, when food production became an overriding priority, and reached its peak in the early 1980s with a Forestry Grant Scheme of tax breaks for investors planting trees on cheap land. \u201cThe cheapest land has always been peat bogs, and they were cleared at an alarming rate to make way for conifer saplings that sometimes didn\u2019t even survive. At times we literally ran ahead of the bulldozers to survey a site before it was destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
There are peatlands in every country in the world, and at that time many were threatened by harvesting and land grabbing. \u201cPeatlands are the Cinderella habitat \u2013 unnoticed and undervalued \u2013 but they do so much for us. Just the top 30cm of a hectare of peatland can contain as much carbon as a hectare of rainforest, and a typical peat bog is three to ten metres deep. It\u2019s Nature\u2019s ultimate carbon-capture system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Richard joined a global community of scientists working to raise awareness of the issue and in 1984 they formed the International Mire Conservation Group. As chair, he led the group to a series of successes over the next 16 years, including lobbying the UK government to bring an end to the Forestry Grant Scheme in 1988. He is now head of environmental and conservation research at the University of East London and involved with a range of environmental bodies and scientific research groups.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cWe still have big issues to address, including the reluctance of the horticultural industry to explore peat alternatives and the possibilities of paludiculture [wet agriculture], but we will get there. Draining land for farming already costs billions. Water levels are rising and flood events becoming more frequent. Do we put our resources into bigger walls, stronger pumps and, ultimately, disaster relief, or do we plan for a more sustainable future?\u201d This month Richard will make the case for peat at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow. \u201cI\u2019m concerned that the current government isn\u2019t fully committed to our cause, but I still feel optimistic about the future. There are peat fields in Japan that have formed over 200,000 years of climate change. Working in this field, you develop a \u2018peat\u2019 state of mind, which is always long-term. I think in the long-term, we \u2013 and the peatlands \u2013 are going to be okay.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
USEFUL INFORMATION<\/strong>Find out more about the Virtual Peatland Pavilion that Richard is running at COP26 at iucn-uk-peatlandprogramme.org<\/p>\n<\/div><\/body><\/html>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Katie Beale Published: Friday, 07 January 2022 at 12:00 am When he was five years old, Richard Lindsay disappeared. Having scoured the house, his mother found him in the garden, sitting under a cotoneaster bush and observing the wing structure of a blackbird. As a child, the renowned peat expert was more interested in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":4454,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert.jpg",960,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert-300x129.jpg",300,129,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert-768x330.jpg",768,330,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert.jpg",800,344,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert.jpg",960,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/48\/2022\/01\/profile-meet-richard-lindsay-the-renowned-peat-expert.jpg",960,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Katie Beale Published: Friday, 07 January 2022 at 12:00 am When he was five years old, Richard Lindsay disappeared. Having scoured the house, his mother found him in the garden, sitting under a cotoneaster bush and observing the wing structure of a blackbird. As a child, the renowned peat expert was more interested in…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/4453"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}