Go with the flow

Scotland's natural capital is proving a boost to its prime property market

- Penny Churchill

NAMED after the Old Norse word floi meaning 'wet or marshy land', the Flow Country is a vast rolling expanse of peatland and wetland covering some 1,500 square miles of Caithness and Sutherland, Scotland's most northerly counties. The largest stretch of blanket bog in Europe, the Flow Country is an area of deep peat, a type of peatland formed over thousands of years as mosses grow, die and accumulate in layers, eventually forming peat.

When peatlands are damaged or degraded due to drainage or peat extraction, stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere, thereby contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions. Peatlands such as the Flow Country act as a carbon sink, trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Now, thanks to a series of dedicated peatland-restoration projects, the Flow Country has embarked on a transformative journey that will see precious peatland restored, the region's delicate ecosystem rejuvenated and carbon loss halted, thereby mitigating the effects of climate change.

As part of the UK Peatland Programme, which aims to restore two million hectares (almost five million acres) of deteriorated peatland by 2040, the Scottish government is supporting landowners' restoration efforts with $250 million of funding via the Peatland Action Scheme. Landowners can also sign up to the Peatland Code, which allows them to create carbon units that can potentially be sold for carbon offsetting. It's small wonder, then, that the value of Scottish land and estates endowed with substantial 'natural capital' assets has sky-rocketed in recent years.