The Scottish Government are deciding whether to overturn a ruling by D&G Council to stop a further 10 years of peat mining at Lockwood Moss outside Beattock.

Scottish Government policy is to protect peatlands because of their vital role in reducing global warming. The extraction of peat requires the removal of a bog’s living surface to reach the partially decomposed layers beneath. It grows at a mere sixteenth of an inch a year, and its mining removes layers that take centuries to develop. Peat is the best vegetative carbon sink we have on the planet.

The challenge to D&G Council’s decision is by an Israeli fertiliser company- ICL/ Everris. The appeal should be dismissed.