Tuesday 17th September: Plenary sessions (live streamed: in-person and online tickets available)
8am – 9am Exhibition set up (Osprey Arena)
8.45am – 10.30am Delegate registration & poster set-up (Conference Centre Foyer, refreshments available)
Please ensure you’re seated by 10.45am as we have an online audience
11am – 12pm Conference welcome and introduction (Auditorium)
Chaired by Emma Hinchliffe, IUCN UK Peatland Programme
11am – 11.15am IUCN UK Peatland Programme welcome: Emma Hinchliffe, Director, IUCN UK Peatland Programme
11.15am – 11.30am Ministerial address: Jim Fairlie MSP, Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity
11.30am – 11.45am An introduction to Peatland ACTION and the challenges and solutions to achieving a coordinated national programme of peatland restoration: Claudia Rowse, Deputy Director of Green Economy, NatureScot
11.45am – 12pm An introduction to Cairngorms National Park and their peatland programme: Grant Moir, CEO, Cairngorms National Park Authority
12pm – 1pm Lunch (Food Court and Giovanni's)
1pm – 2.30pm Engaging communities and creating connections (Auditorium)
Chaired by Sara Booth-Card, Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts
This plenary session celebrates the unsung heroes of the peatland community: the volunteers, creatives and local people who champion peatlands, get stuck in with practical restoration, become citizen scientists, or use creative approaches to explore and connect people with peatlands in inspirational ways.
1pm – 1.10pm Introduction from Chair
1.10pm – 1.20pm Getting more Eyes on the Bog: Jane Akerman, IUCN UK Peatland Programme
Eyes on the Bog is the Peatland Programme’s long-term, low cost monitoring initiative, which has been rolled out across the UK thanks to the support of our incredible partners and an army of citizen scientists. We’ll provide an update on our Eyes on the Bog Fund and the projects benefitting from it.
1.20pm – 1.35pm Conserving lowland peatlands in central Scotland by volunteer action: Polly Phillpot, Butterfly Conservation
In 2014 Butterfly Conservation formed a new project to improve the fortunes of Scottish lowland bogs through volunteer action. Dubbed the ‘Bog Squad’, volunteers have removed invasive scrub and installed ditch-blocking dams. These actions help re-wet areas, protecting peatland vegetation, as well as the Large Heath butterfly, a peatland specialist, once widespread on Britain’s lowland raised bogs.
1.35pm – 1.50pm Ireland’s Community Wetlands Forum: Mary Mulvey, Community Wetlands Forum
A brief history of Ireland’s Community Wetlands Forum, and the organisation’s foundation of community engagement through projects such as ‘Just Transition’ and ‘Community Tourism’. Exploring the role of leadership, ‘Community Mentorship’ training and developments in wetland conservation knowledge, CWF have created connections with many other peatland projects in Ireland, including WaterLANDS, Wild Atlantic Nature and FarmPEAT.
1.50pm – 2.05pm Creative connections with urban schools: Lucy Lee, Yorkshire Peat Partnership
Yorkshire Peat Partnership has partnered with grassroots arts organisation Keighley Creative to use nature connection and the creative arts to explore peatlands with six primary schools across three of the most underserved urban boroughs in West Yorkshire. Through explorations into the past, present and potential future of their local peatlands, children have contributed artworks which will be transformed into an adorned timber leaky dam by textile artist and sculptor Naseem Darbey and installed at a peatland restoration site close to the participating schools.
2.05pm – 2.20pm Performance lecture: Manon Awst
Manon Awst is a Welsh artist and PhD candidate at Bangor University, who explores the patterns of her local peatlands with the support of Natural Resources Wales and their National Peatland Action Programme. Through a sculptural lens, she has been zooming in and responding to the alkaline fens of Anglesey and developing performative investigations on the quaking bogs in Gwynedd. At the conference she will hold a 'performance lecture' bringing together the different strands of her research, from deep listening to 'mooratmung' to finding balance on the stickiest, most unstable of grounds.
She is currently a Future Wales Fellow as part of Arts Council Wales and Natural Resources Wales’ Creative Nature programme.
Website: www.manonawst.com
Instagram: @manon_awst
2.20pm – 2.30pm Audience Q&A
2.30 – 3pm Refreshments (Foyer)
3pm – 4.30pm UK Strategy summary of progress and panel discussion (Auditorium)
2024 sees the launch of the Peatland Programme’s UK Strategy report, in which we take stock of progress against the objectives of the UK Peatland Strategy. We’ll present key findings of the report, celebrating successes and highlighting where we’re falling short of critical targets for a sustainable future. This will be followed by a panel discussion with representatives from each of the UK’s four devolved nations, giving our online and in-person audiences the opportunity to put their questions to the panel.
UK Peatland Strategy report: Jessica Fìor-Berry and Helen Harper, IUCN UK Peatland Programme
Four country panel discussion
Chaired by Stuart Brooks, IUCN UK Peatland Programme Co-Chair
Northern Ireland representative: Fiona Dickson, DAERA
England representatives: Kate Corfield (Defra), Jonathan Butterfield (Natural England) and Craig Rockcliff (Environment Agency)
Scotland representatives: Ben Dipper and Heather Perman, Scottish Government and Peter Hutchinson, NatureScot Peatland ACTION
Wales representatives: Mannon Lewis, Natural Resources Wales/National Peatland Action Programme (Wales)
5pm – 10pm Poster and exhibition session (Osprey Arena, open to the public from 5 – 7pm)
Join our sponsors and exhibitors from across the peatland community to learn more about the research, restoration and engagement taking place across the UK. Try your hand at Peatland ACTION’s digger simulator, explore biodiverse soundscapes from different peatland habitats, or find out more about the amazing technologies being used to measure and monitor peatlands.
6pm – 7pm Peatland Poetry and Cinema (Auditorium, open to the public)
Featuring the premiere of ‘Sphagnum Portraits’, a short film jointly commissioned by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, this eclectic mix of sound and vision takes you on a journey through the special peatlands and people that make the UK such a wonderful place.
6pm – 6.05pm Welcome: Jane Akerman, IUCN UK Peatland Programme
6.05pm – 6.20pm ‘The most important plant in the world (2024)’ from the series Sphagnum Portraits’ introduced by Caroline Vitzthum
‘The most important plant in the world’ is the first in a series of short film portraits commissioned by the IUCN UK Peatland Programme, highlighting ambitious works undertaken by individuals, charities and businesses to promote the importance of peatlands and help restoring them.
6.20pm – 6.30pm ‘Connecting communities through citizen science and the arts’ introduced by Lucy Lee and Beth Thomas, Yorkshire Peat Partnership
6.30pm – 6.40pm 'The Special Blanket' poetry reading, Roxane Andersen, University of the Highlands and Islands
6.40pm – 6.50pm ‘The Mossy Carpet’ introduced by Naomi Wright, Art and Energy
6.50pm – 7pm ‘STACKS’ and ‘Curlew, Curlew, Curlew!’ introduced by Rose Ferraby, University of Exeter
7.30pm – 10pm Buffet dinner and networking (Osprey Arena)
