Restored hectares of peatland: EIR release

Information requested

How many hectares (or acres) of Peatlands have been repaired or rejuvenated in Scotland in the period 1 November 2014 to 24 November 2021?

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

The answer to your question is 29,958 hectares (ha) of degraded peatland have been restored in Scotland between 2014 and 2021. We are unable to define the exact number of restored hectares from 1 November 2014; we are also unable to define the exact number of restored hectares up until 24 November 2021 as these figures are not yet finalised. The 29,958 ha total is based on restored hectares from the financial year 2014-2015 to April 2021, using Peatland ACTION data – Peatland ACTION is funded by the Scottish Government and is the national peatland restoration programme delivered by NatureScot.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.