The Government must be more ambitious in protecting UK peatland or risk international embarrassment over its failure on climate action, wildlife campaigners said.

UK peatlands hold three times as much carbon as woodlands, but in their current degraded state – with peat damaged, drained, extracted or burned – they release 23 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, some 5% of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, the Wildlife Trusts said.

Peatlands are also a precious wildlife habitat, and are vital for storing and filtering water, reducing flooding and cleaning water supplies, the coalition of wildlife groups from around the country said.

The Wildlife Trusts accused the Government of failing to be ambitious enough in ending damage to the UK’s peatlands and restoring a significant proportion of what is already harmed.

A peat strategy for England has been delayed since 2018, and Government targets for restoring 35,000 hectares of peatland by 2025 and £50 million restoration funding fall far short of levels urged by UK climate advisers, the Trusts said.

A partial ban on peat burning announced by the Government will only cease the practice on a small number of peatlands, they warned.

Charities are stepping in to fill the gap, including Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, which has restored a third of the blanket bog in Yorkshire, and has plans for more restoration, moss planting and ditch blocking.

Northumberland Wildlife Trust has helped restore 2,000 hectares of peatland across the Border Mires around Kielder Forest, clearing conifer plantations, blocking agricultural ditches and creating 130 pools for rare birds such as the curlew.

And Lancashire Wildlife Trust is restoring 347 hectares of peatland including former commercial peat extraction site of Little Woolden Moss and the formerly drained Astley Moss, which are being reclaimed by sphagnum mosses, hare’s tail cottongrass and heather.

But with only a quarter of the UK’s three million hectares of peatland in a natural state, Craig Bennett, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts, said it was a “matter of extreme urgency” that the Government leads the way in nursing fens and bogs back to health.

The warning comes in the run-up to a crucial United Nations climate summit which the UK is hosting in Glasgow in November, known as Cop26, when other countries will be looking to the UK to see what climate action it is taking at home.

Mr Bennett said: “The Government has failed to set an ambitious restoration target for peatlands even though they are one of the most valuable habitats in the UK.

“Just as bad is the fact that they do not have the appetite to stop the ongoing damage. The nature and climate crises must be tackled together – prizing our peatlands should be top of the Government’s to-do list.”

And he said: “Burning should be banned everywhere and this precious habitat should be rewetted to stop moorland fires raging and to help rare and unusual wildlife like curlew, carnivorous plants and beautiful dragonflies to return.”

A Defra spokesperson said: “We have worked closely with stakeholders to develop the strategy over the past two years and we will be setting out further measures to protect our crucial peatlands this year, as part of a package of measures to protect England’s iconic landscapes and deliver nature-based solutions.”