A new rocket launch site has been proposed in the far north of Scotland to send small satellites into space. The plan is for a £17.3m spaceport on the A’Mhòine peninsula in Sutherland, a site chosen because it is so remote and surrounded by water and open countryside in case a rocket launch goes wrong.
But the proposed site is next to protected peatland, part of the Flow Country of northern Scotland, the largest blanket bog in Europe, estimated to store 400 million tonnes of carbon, which is vital in the fight against climate breakdown. A report this year by a team of researchers was critical of the development, saying: “The damage caused by the construction and operation of the spaceport will lead to the further destruction of this Highland ‘wild land’.”
The Flow Country is full of deep peat and needs protection. Like all peatlands, it is made up of the remains of plants such as sphagnum moss, which took in carbon through photosynthesis when the plants were alive and, after the plants died, the carbon was locked away in the peat. This peat is more efficient at storing carbon than forests, but peatlands are fragile and threatened by development, forestry, wildfires and drought, and they urgently need to be preserved.
