text: Sweden About 15% of the land in Sweden is covered by peatlands. Whilst nowadays the main use of such soils is for forestry, peat-rich lands have historically been exploited to produce energy, agricultural land and horticultural substrates. The most common method to extract peat during the 19th and 20th centuries was peat cutting, a process where the land is cleared of forest and subsequentially drained. Peat cores are then extracted under dry weather conditions and stored on stacks to let the residual moisture evaporate. Today, clear cutting for horticultural peat (of which Sweden is an important producer in Europe) is limited to some areas of Sweden and strictly regulated by the Swedish Environmental Code to prevent that significant groundwater storages and carbon sinks areas are altered and compromised by human activities. At the same time, restoration of drained peatlands through rewetting is urged by national and international policies to exploit the peat-rich soil properties in mitigating climate change effects.
  Ireland
  In the Republic of Ireland, a state-owned company called  was responsible for managing peat extraction. It processed the extracted peat into milled peat which was used in power stations and sold processed peat fuel in the form of peat briquettes which are used for domestic heating. These are oblong bars of densely compressed, dried, and shredded peat. Peat moss is a manufactured product for use in garden cultivation. Turf (dried out peat sods) is also commonly used in rural areas.
  In January 2021 Bord na Móna announced that it had ceased all peat harvesting and cutting operations and would be moving its business to a climate solutions company.
  In 2022 the sale of peat for burning was prohibited, but some people are still allowed to cut and burn it.
  Russia
  Use of peat for energy production was prominent in the Soviet Union, especially in 1965. In 1929, over 40% of the Soviet Union's electric energy came from peat, which dropped to 1% by 1980.
  In the 1960s, larger sections of swamps and bogs in Western Russia were drained for agricultural and mining purposes.