GEOLOGY 'rock star' Professor Iain Stewart has thrown his weight behind a bid to protect one of the last great wildernesses in the UK which is critical in the fight against the effects of climate change.
The BBC presenter and Scots geologist Professor Iain Stewart is one of the key star experts who have come together to champion a bid to for the Flow Country to join the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge and The Grand Canyon as a World Heritage Site. The designation is given by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for areas judged to be of "outstanding universal value".
The rolling expanse of peat bog stretching across Caithness and Sutherland may appear featureless, but it is soaking up large amounts of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well as being home to a rich variety of wildlife.
Underneath that living peatland surface is an estimated 400 million tonnes of carbon. That's more than twice the amount found in all of Britain’s forests combined.
READ MORE: Flow Country bogs rise as forest is cut down
But experts fear that if not enough is done to protect Europe's biggest blanket bog that carbon could be released into the atmosphere - a catastrophic development in the country's bid to tackle climate change.
Professor Stewart has joined those who believe the World Heritage Site designation would provide "legacy" protection to ensure current efforts to protect peatland all over Scotland are not ruined.
The argument is that the Flow Country is not just of cultural importance, it has environmental cadence.
The professor of geoscience communication at the University of Plymouth said we need to need to protect what he describes as "the crown jewels in terms of peatland" which will send a message to protect other areas of peat all round Scotland.
He said: "The key reason to make it a World Heritage Site is that just it is such a unique habitat. It is probably the world's best peatland.
READ MORE: Mapped: Scotland's planet-saving carbon 'sinks
"The famous equivalents are the Arctic and the Siberian tundra areas and there are blanket peatbogs in Patagonia, but they are all slightly different.
"The Scottish one is this vast area of the northern part of our country. It is an underrated gem of an environment, which is great for habitat, lots and lots of species you won't find anywhere else.
"But then it is the UK's biggest store of terrestrial carbon at a time there are big debates about climate change and how we are going to store carbon.
"Much of our understanding of the climate change that has happened since the last ice age has come from peatland bogs and tracking the changes of vegetation and species that tell us about temperature.
READ MORE: Brexit threatens to wipe out Scotland's rarest animals and put at risk iconic landscapes
"But equally, these blanket areas are threatened by contemporary climate change. The danger there is that the degradation of this blanket peat, the drying out of it, is the dangers of potentially releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere and that would make climate change even worse."
Prof Stewart, who holds a UNESCO chair in geoscience and society added: "It is an intricate story, of a historical legacy that is really strong, a contemporary environment that is unique, and with a future prospect. It is important not just for Scotland but for the planet.
"With World Heritage comes a very particular protection. As well as raising its profile internationally."
Prof Stewart, who has fronted programmes such as Earth: The Power of the Planet; How Earth Made Us, How To Grow A Planet, The Rise of the Continents and Planet Oil has joined TV historian and archaeologist Neil Oliver and UNESCO expert Professor Barry Gilbertson in a series of talks in the Highlands this summer that answer the question Why Make The Flow Country A World Heritage Site?
READ MORE: Giving nature a helping hand: How £8m scheme is revitalising peatbogs
The Full Flow events, which reaches Thurso on Saturday and Inverness on Sunday invite audiences to hear about the environmental and cultural importance of The Flow Country and the need to protect the spectacular beauty and wildlife of the area’s unique habitat and the part it plays in the lives of people who live here.
Prof Stewart said: "What we are saying is the Flow Country are the crown jewels in terms of peatland, but across Scotland there are lots of those peatland bogs, and many of them quite small, and close to urban areas, but they are getting threatened with development, with people thinking there is nothing there and that we don't need to worry about it.
"By having the Flow Country right up there, and people talking about the importance of peatlands and climate, it allows them to develop things locally that can really help.
A short film about the Flow Country
"There are two elements, let's keep the carbon there by really promoting the blanket peat bogland, then we can accelerate and get it to develop even more, and that goes against our climate change budget."
Project co-ordinator for The Flow Country World Heritage Site Working Group, Joe Perry said they have to convince the UK Government that the Flow Country is the best of the candidate sites that are currently on a tentative list to qualify for consideration as World Heritage sites over the next three months. But it could take a further two years before it will be accepted by UNESCO.
He says the designation will help to protect peatland restoration work. The Scottish government said last week it would put an extra £11m in funding to restore degraded areas of peatland in addition to the £3m awarded earlier this year.
READ MORE: Flow Country bogs rise as forest is cut down
Since 2012, Peatland Action has worked with other organisations to restore about 46,951 acres (19,000 ha) of peatland.
"It is a legacy for the future," said Mr Perry. "This would be the greatest accolade that this habitat could achieve and thoroughly deserves."
Neil Oliver, who is the president of the National Trust for Scotland added: "In these troubled and troubling times, people can feel impotent and helpless in the face of the scale of the challenges we are told we face.
"Really conservation and care starts with looking after your own back yard. You have to tend with what is right there in front of you before – and as well as – looking at the wider global picture. Scotland should be looking after Scotland."
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