North Highland Forest District was recently awarded £985,000 from the Peatland ACTION fund to support restoration work at Dalchork Plantations near Lairg in Sutherland, Scotland. The work will include woodland removal, restoration of an area previously felled, as well as mire restoration on degraded, but previously unplanted land. Overall, the forest district plans to spend £1m restoring approximately 750ha of peatland in 2016.
This work builds on that which they started in 2014, after receiving funding from the Peatland ACTION fund to restore blanket bog in Caithness and Sutherland. This money was used to deliver forest to bog restoration by removing failed conifer crops, post harvesting treatment of brash, and ditch and furrow blocking on sites in North Sutherland and East Caithness, adjacent to the Flow Country Natura sites. The restoration activities took place on sites that the Forestry Commission planning team had identified as priorities for mire restoration and achieved 650ha of restored peatland in the North Highland Forest District in total.
