Summer of 1992. Rubber boots. Straw bales. Piles of wet, chopped mosses. A group of peat producers, researchers and students discussing, looking at plants through a magnifier or delicately spreading thin layers of mosses over small parcels of dark bare peat. This strange picture describes the first steps of what would later become a central pillar of the Canadian Horticultural Peat Industry’s Responsible Management commitments: the development of a restoration method for peat extraction sites. 

Thirty years ago, before climate change and greenhouse gas policies were on the top of citizens and governments’ agendas, the Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Association (CSPMA) and its members started collaborating with Université Laval’s Peatland Ecology Research Group, federal and provincial governmental agencies and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to find after-use options for post-extracted peatlands. The goal: develop a restoration method that would be operationally feasible and ecologically sound to bring back the ecosystem functions: biodiversity, hydrology and carbon sequestration. Since then, the research program has been through several cycles, involving multidisciplinary researchers from various universities across Canada and even internationally, which led to the development of the Moss Layer Transfer Technique, a method now applied around the globe and inspiring other industries.  

Peatlands: No Longer an Underestimated Ecosystem

According to the Global Peatlands Assessment (GPA; UNEP 2022), peatlands cover 119 million hectares of Canada, which represents approximately 13% of the country and 25% of global peatland surfaces. More than 97% of the peatlands in North America are still in a relatively intact state, delivering essential ecological services to humans. Yet, they have recently become the ultimate example of underestimated ecosystems and have been impacted by anthropogenic activities. The GPA report states that in Canada, these disturbances are attributable to agriculture (63%), mining (18%), hydropower reservoirs (12%), forestry (3%) and peat extraction (1%). While the impact of the Canadian Horticultural Peat Industry is small in comparison, it has been a pioneer in applying a solution to mitigate this. And you’ve guessed it: through ecological peatland restoration. 

By nature, the Canadian Horticultural Peat Industry does not operate on vast areas, but instead, extracts peat over relatively small parcels of land until the extraction of a portion of the peat deposit is completed. As highlighted by the GPA, the industry has a relatively constrained impact on Canada’s peatland ecosystems. The industry footprint—the total area of all peatland surfaces extracted since the beginning of industrial operations in the early 1930s—is equivalent to 0.03% of all of Canada’s peatlands. From this, 26% has been restored or reclaimed to date. The remaining portion is either in production (61%), in the process of being restored (10%) or has been converted into other types of land-use (like agriculture; 3%) (CSPMA 2021). 

Nowadays, peatland restoration has been included in the Canadian governments’ (federal and provincial/territorial) stringent regulations that oversee all steps of peat extraction sites development, operations and after-use. However, some older sites that were closed without going through a restoration process still remain. To address those, CSPMA committed to a National Peatland Restoration Initiative in 2016, which sets ambitious restoration goals for the post-extracted sites. Furthermore, CSPMA has obtained funding in 2022 for a $6.7 million, large-scale 5-year project in collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) through the Nature Smart Climate Solutions Fund: Placed-based Actions Program. This support will allow the industry to tackle the remaining “historical” peatlands closed without restoration.

Global Certification = Accountability and Measurable Results 

Approximately 80% of the Canadian peat production is certified under the SCS Global Veriflora® Certification for Responsible Horticultural Peat Moss Production. The certification is an independent program attesting that peat is extracted from peatlands managed in an environmentally and socially responsible manner, following requirements that go further than many regulatory requirements from various levels of government in Canada. For the peat industry, the certification is another incentive to apply Best Management Practices (BMPs) and to foster innovative tools such as a greenhouse gas calculator for the certified peat producers.  

Grounded in Sound Science and Research 

The Canadian Horticultural Peat Industry has been collaborating for decades with the academic research community. Since 1992, the CSPMA has made possible $20 million worth of research projects that inform its responsible management commitments and actions. While restoration is a central pillar of CSPMA, the peat industry has also developed a set of BMPs that companies agree to and apply to self-regulate and ensure responsible and sustainable practices are respected. These include other types of reclamation when restoration is not possible (e.g., berry production), sphagnum farming, tools to improve water quality and monitoring, life cycle and greenhouse gas assessments, valorization of industrial residues, wildfire management, etc. The production of peatland restoration guides, available for download, and technological transfer workshops ensure the knowledge developed by the researchers and the industry not only serves its own objectives, but contributes to the global responsible management and ecological restoration of peatlands.

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