Peatlands contain over half of England’s terrestrial carbon stores. In their natural state, peatlands play a vital role in trapping carbon and also provide a wealth of wider benefits such as improved ecosystems and biodiversity, better water quality and natural flood management.  Since the 1600s, our lowland peatlands have been drained of water to create drier soils suitable for conventional agricultural use and food production. In England, only 13% of our peatlands remain in a near-natural state and, in low-lying peatlands (the lowlands), this figure drops to less than 1%. When peatlands degrade in this way, soil is lost, the land subsides, and the carbon once stored in the soil is lost to the atmosphere, primarily as carbon dioxide.  Lowland peat soils provide some of our most productive farmland. Without a change to how these peatlands are managed, we will continue to lose valuable agricultural soils, leading to loss of agricultural land and greater challenges to food security. In parts of the lowlands, the Climate Change Committee estimate that there is only enough peat soil left to continue farming as we do now for another 20 to 50 years.