Member

In passing, I note that the creation and deposition of peat at one millimetre per annum means that the policy of creating new peat and encouraging further peat depositions is a very long process indeed. Some years ago, when we had a paper at the headquarters of the RICS—my professional body—I asked at a meeting whether the period taken to deposit peat would be consonant with the time horizon of the policies in relation to relevant land management. I did not get an answer, but I note that, in my lifetime, my father was getting sums of money in grants from the Ministry of Agriculture for an excellent standard of reclamation of heather moorland for agricultural use. We then had to manage all the vegetation, and now we come full circle to having to deal with this “What-if?” of where nature is going to take us while we all contemplate what is going on. There have been so many changes in policy in my lifetime that I sincerely doubt whether the policy time horizon stands any real chance of meeting the actual ecological and deposition processes of peat creation.