Peat Feasibility Study with Cumbria Wildlife Trust Peat Restoration Team Sept 2024

Earlier this year we were very happy to get some more funding through the Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) Scheme – part of this is to fund a feasibility study to explore the best way to restore our 160 acres of bog. Our bog is being damaged by the grips (drainage channels) which the farmers were paid to dig in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time it was thought that draining the bog would create more land for grazing, instead it just damaged the peat, an important ecosystem. and carbon sink, it also caused severe erosion and flooding.

Now we need to put this misguided strategy right by filling in the grips and allowing the bog to flourish again.

In September we met with Susie Web from Cumbria Wildlife Trust to learn how they assess peat and put feasibility study together. As it was a weekday just three members of our YSG were able to join. It was a really interesting and useful session and we learnt lots about easier ways to survey vegetation and how to identify different similar species – like rush.

We’ll now focus on peat depth measuring – to complete our baseline survey. The Cumbria Wildlife Trust team will focus on measuring and assessing the grips.

Heath Rush ID

We also found a couple of caterpillars