Think of a peatland like a giant wet sponge that has spent thousands of years soaking up carbon from the atmosphere. When you drain that sponge – to cut turf, plant crops or run power stations – it dries out, shrinks and releases all that stored carbon back into the air. Peatland restoration is the process of rewetting that sponge so it stops leaking carbon and, over time, starts absorbing it again.
In Ireland, where peatlands cover roughly a fifth of the land surface, restoration has moved from a niche conservation concern to a national climate priority. Two major programmes are now racing to undo centuries of drainage before the damage becomes irreversible.
🌿 How Peatland Restoration Works
The core principle is simple: raise the water table back to within 10 centimetres of the surface. In practice, this involves a combination of techniques tailored to each site.
Drain blocking is the most common starting point. Restoration teams use peat dams, plastic piling or timber barriers to plug the drainage channels that were dug to lower the water table for industrial peat extraction. Once blocked, rainwater accumulates and gradually saturates the peat body again.
Re-profiling reshapes the surface of cutaway bogs where decades of harvesting have left an uneven landscape of ridges and hollows. By levelling the terrain and redistributing residual peat, hydrologists can create conditions where water spreads evenly rather than pooling in isolated pockets.
Sphagnum inoculation accelerates the return of peat-forming mosses. Fragments of living sphagnum are harvested from donor sites and scattered across prepared surfaces. Under the right moisture conditions, these fragments establish new colonies that eventually knit together into an active peat-forming layer. The EU LIFE Peatlands and People project has ringfenced 8,000 hectares of deep peat on Bord na Mona lands specifically for this technique.
Once rewetting begins, pioneer vegetation such as bog cotton, heather, purple moor-grass and scattered birch typically starts to colonise within five to ten years. Full raised bog restoration – where active peat formation resumes – takes considerably longer and may not be achievable on heavily cutaway sites where too much peat has been removed.
🌿 Ireland’s Two Major Restoration Programmes
🌿 Bord na Mona Peatlands Climate Action Scheme (PCAS)
The Peatlands Climate Action Scheme, also known as the Enhanced Decommissioning, Rehabilitation and Restoration Scheme (EDRRS), is Ireland’s largest peatland restoration initiative. It targets approximately 33,000 hectares across 82 former industrial bogs in the midlands where Bord na Mona previously extracted peat for electricity generation and briquette production.
The scheme is funded through the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility via Ireland’s Climate Action Fund, with a budget of up to €108 million. The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) acts as regulator. The programme timeline runs from 2021 to 2025, though rehabilitation works will continue delivering benefits for decades afterwards.
It is estimated that PCAS will deliver a net reduction of 3.3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent over the period to 2050 through enhanced rehabilitation and rewetting measures. Bord na Mona brings 40 years of rehabilitation research experience and 90 years of peatlands management to the programme.
Each bog receives an individual rehabilitation plan prepared by ecologists, hydrologists and engineers. Plans are published for public consultation on bnmpcas.ie and must be approved by the NPWS before works begin.
🌿 NPWS Raised Bog Restoration Programme
Running in parallel, the NPWS operates its own accelerated restoration programme focused on protected raised bogs within Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and Natural Heritage Areas (NHAs). Since 2018, restoration has been completed on 5,000 hectares of protected raised bogs, with preparatory actions underway across additional sites.
The programme receives €5 million annually from carbon tax revenue, supplemented by additional exchequer funding. In 2024 alone, peatland habitat restoration measures were completed across more than 565 hectares on eight protected raised bog sites.
The earlier EU LIFE project “The Living Bog” (concluded 2022) restored over 2,650 hectares across 12 sites in seven counties, with EU and exchequer funding of €5 million. This project demonstrated best practice techniques that now inform the wider programme.
🌿 Why Peatland Restoration Matters for Ireland
Ireland’s peatlands are not just a climate mitigation tool – they provide a cascade of benefits that make restoration one of the most cost-effective climate adaptation measures available.
Carbon management: Drained peatlands can release up to 30 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year. Rewetting slashes these emissions and, over time, can return bogs to net carbon sink status. Ireland’s carbon budgets depend on getting this right.
Water quality and flood control: Restored peatlands act as natural sponges that slow water release, reduce flood risk downstream and filter sediments. The National River Basin Management Plan 2022-2027 identifies Bord na Mona’s peatland rehabilitation as a positive contributor to Water Framework Directive objectives.
Biodiversity: Rehabilitation has already delivered measurable biodiversity gains, including the return of Eurasian cranes to restored midlands bogs. Restored sites provide habitat for rare plants, insects, birds and mammals in a landscape where many natural wetlands have been lost to agriculture.
Community and employment: Restoration work creates skilled employment in rural midlands communities that previously depended on the peat industry, supporting just transition objectives. Teams of ecologists, hydrologists, engineers and field operatives are employed across both programmes.
🌿 Paludiculture: Farming on Rewetted Peatlands
An exciting frontier in peatland use is paludiculture – farming on wet or rewetted peat soils instead of draining them. Rather than abandoning restored land, paludiculture keeps it productive while maintaining the high water table that prevents carbon loss.
Ireland’s first paludiculture demonstration farms operate in west County Offaly under the Peatlands for Prosperity project, run by Green Restoration Ireland. Trials include blueberries, cranberries, chokeberries, sphagnum moss (valued in horticulture as a sustainable peat alternative), bulrushes and wet multi-species swards. Large reeds and willow are also being explored as low-carbon building materials feeding into the circular economy.
The University of Galway-led Palus Demos project, funded by the EU, is testing the scalability of paludiculture crops across Ireland and Europe. Researchers estimate gross income potential of up to €33,000 per hectare per year from high-value paludiculture products, though markets for wetland crops are still developing.
Sphagnum farming is of particular interest. Ireland’s horticulture sector faces a squeeze on peat supply after licensing rules tightened for bogs larger than 30 hectares. Cultivated sphagnum moss could serve as a renewable, sustainable alternative to extracted peat, creating a new income stream for farmers on marginal land.
🌿 Frequently Asked Questions
🌿 How long does it take to restore a peatland?
Pioneer vegetation such as bog cotton and heather typically colonises within five to ten years of rewetting. However, full restoration to active peat-forming conditions can take decades or longer, depending on how much peat was removed and how degraded the site is. Some heavily cutaway bogs may never return to raised bog status but will still develop valuable wetland habitats and deliver carbon sequestration benefits.
🌿 Does rewetting peatlands increase methane emissions?
Yes, rewetting can initially increase methane emissions because waterlogged, oxygen-free conditions favour methane-producing bacteria. However, the reduction in CO2 emissions from stopping peat oxidation far outweighs the methane increase in most cases. Over time, as sphagnum mosses re-establish, they create acidic conditions that suppress methane production. The overall greenhouse gas balance of rewetted peatlands is strongly positive for the climate.
🌿 Can restored peatlands be used for anything productive?
Absolutely. Paludiculture allows farming on rewetted peat, producing crops like sphagnum moss, berries, reeds and bulrushes. Restored peatlands also provide ecosystem services including water purification, flood attenuation and amenity value. Several Bord na Mona sites are being developed as public recreational greenways alongside restoration works.
🌿 How is peatland restoration funded in Ireland?
The main funding sources are the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (up to €108 million for the Bord na Mona PCAS), annual carbon tax revenue (€5 million per year for the NPWS raised bog programme) and EU LIFE project funding. The European Investment Bank has also agreed to support NPWS in scaling up peatland restoration across the country.
Peatland restoration connects to several other climate topics. To understand the carbon storage role of healthy peatlands, see our guide to carbon sinks. For the process by which restored bogs lock away carbon, read about carbon sequestration. And to see how Ireland accounts for land-based emissions and removals, visit our page on LULUCF.