According to Dr Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, a local wetland ecologist, cycling enthusiast and president of the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland the small-scale is very much less destructive than the industrial-scale peat cutting that becomes horticultural compost and fuel for power stations. "Hand-cutting turf is very different from machine-cut turf: it is less destructive and slower to become extensive," she said. The UK has legislated to ban the sale of horticultural peat to gardeners, and Ireland's peat-burning power stations are being shut down.