Caledonian Climate is an environmental service and consultancy firm working with landholders, communities and businesses to revitalise Scotland’s peatlands. Caledonian Climate delivers a world-class Nature Based Solution that tackles climate change and enhances and protects nature with multiple benefits. Focusing solely on peatlands they are unique in providing an end-to-end service provision that encompasses all elements of a peatland restoration project. The business can support clients from project appraisal and design, navigating the complexities of the Peatland Code and carbon markets, right through the restoration phase to ongoing monitoring support to protect the asset long into the future.
Restoration of peatlands is essential. If carried out properly, it will have an immediate and lasting impact on reducing emissions, bringing life and colour back to Scotland’s wonderful natural habitats, creating economic growth for local communities and supporting the efforts of landholders, business leaders and others to address climate change. With this knowledge Caledonian Climate see it as their duty to encourage and aid restoration across the country, capturing and storing vast quantities of carbon at a time.
Peat wetland restoration is still a niche industry across Scotland. Not only do they work hard to restore these landscapes, they help to educate people and encourage them to understand the importance of this powerful nature-based solution that we have at our fingertips. Not long ago, rural land management practises revolved around draining peatlands, by ploughing hill drains through these sensitive ecosystems to achieve the exact opposite of what they are doing today. Peatlands were seen as a wasteland with low productivity, so draining the water off the hill to achieve a drier ecosystem for grazing seemed a good idea at the time.
It's only in recent years that scientific evidence has been able to prove the importance of peatlands, in a re-wetted vegetated state, and their efficient carbon sequestration abilities.
Events such as a recent SLE Walk and Talk event at Lochrosque and our stand at The Scottish Game Fair attracted healthy discussion and challenge as to why these projects are so important. They aim to continue to spread the word in every way they can.
The next steps for Caledonian Climate (besides continuing to restore peatlands at scale across Scotland) is to build strong connections with local schools and colleges to promote work in the rural restoration sector. In order to combat the twin crises, we must accelerate the growth of our restoration infrastructure nationally.