Yesterday the peat works, run by the American company Scotts, on Hatfield moor near Doncaster were occupied for the day by activists from across the country. The works must have known aboout the barely publicised event, as no work was being carried out on the site and there was a police prescence.
Despite this prescence, and due to the huge size of the site, activists were able to wander round the site all day. This action is extremely significant, because peat mining is a seasonal activity, so if work is stopped during the summer (peat needs to be dry to be harvested) it sets their targets back quite a bit.
You can easily see how beautiful the site could be, when you see the surrounding area, which supports a great diversity of wildlife (apparently 5000 species) from darting dragonflys to beautiful cotton grasses. We even noticed a birds nest in the heavily worked drainage channels on the site.
While wandering the site it was easy to see that the peat pixies had been busy tying to save their homelands. Drainage channels appreared to have been filled in while others had dams blocking them. Rumours were abound of fistier pixies getting to the machinery and workings of the site, but I can not comfirm this at all.
I can confirm that everyone left the site and no arrests were made, although a few drivers were given producers and some people were serched.
Please ask your local garden centre to not stock scotts compost as they are destroying a beautiful and ireperable habitat to get it. Whats more leaf mould actually works better than peat in compost for routeing properties (this is why peat is used as it has no nutritional value for plants). Leaf mould is made by piling up atumnal leaf fall and turning it occasionally. In a years time you will have the perfect substance to mix with compost from your veg waste to make a potting mixture.
This sensless maddness and destruction must stop.
See also: Peat Mining