Qualla: Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands

Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Walk far enough into the Flow Country and the horizon becomes a question. There are no fences, no walls, no trees - just open peat for miles, broken by hundreds of small dubh lochans (the Gaelic name for the dark peaty pools) and the slow movement of dunlin and golden plover. This is the largest blanket bog in Britain, and in July 2024 UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site - the first peatland in the world to receive that designation. The decision changed how the world looks at a landscape that locals had often dismissed as wasteland.

Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands: How Big

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands Special Protection Area covers 143,503 hectares - one of the largest recognised conservation sites in the United Kingdom and the largest Ramsar site in Scotland. The wider Flow Country covers an even broader area across the two historic coun...

Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands: The Carbon Argument

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Peat is dead but not decomposed plant material that has been accumulating in these basins since the end of the last ice age, sometimes more than ten thousand years. The blanket bogs of the Flow Country hold an estimated 400 million tonnes of carbon - more than all the trees in th...

Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands: Birds of the Bog

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The wildlife list is remarkable for a place that looks empty. Internationally important populations of greylag goose and dunlin breed here, along with nationally important populations of ten other waterfowl species including golden plover, greenshank, common scoter, and short-ear...

Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands: The UNESCO Year

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 2024 World Heritage inscription was years in the making. The Flow Country had already been listed as a Ramsar wetland of international importance and held Special Protection Area status under the Birds Directive. What UNESCO recognition added was global visibility and a perma...