The unprecedented scheme to be announced on Wednesday will use taxpayers' money to compensate a major peat extraction company for stopping its operations on three key sites.

Wildlife groups have been campaigning for years to stop large-scale cutting of peat from moorland sites in Britain to meet the huge demand for gardening products.

The bogs take thousands of years to form and support a unique range of plants and animals, including the boghopper beetle and a yellow fly called the hairy canary.

The BBC's environment correspondent Tim Hirsch says the government's wildlife advisers English Nature will be given around �10m to buy two moors in South Yorkshire and one in Cumbria which together form more than half of the UK's total peat production.

Financial fears

The American-based company Scotts, which currently runs the sites, will transfer its staff to conservation work to help restore the bogs to their original state.

The move has been welcomed by environmental groups and television gardener Alan Titchmarsh, who says good peat-free alternatives are now available for most jobs in the garden.