Climate change will lead to the loss of up to forty per cent of the suitable climactic areas for Irish Peatlands by 2075, an international conference on botany was told at the start of September.
A paper to be presented by four academics from Trinity College Dublin on the impact of climate change on biodiversity of Ireland reveals the threat posed by global warming to a habitat that is particularly identified with Ireland.
According to the group from the Botany Department at TCD, led by Professor Mike Jones, recent assessments predict the loss of almost half the suitable areas for peatlands within 60 years.
The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC) has pointed out before that 82 per cent of Ireland's original peatlands of more than one million hectares has been lost over the past four centuries, mostly as a result of Bord na Móna's peat extraction activities since the 1930s.
