Explore MoorLIFE 2020 on the Projects Map
Which of the many peatland benefits is your project focused on enhancing or conserving?
This project has several focusses, including: to stabilise and revegetate bare peat, rewet the blanket bog, control invasive species and plant sphagnum, and work with land managers to share best practice.
Stabilising peat for carbon capture, improving water quality and increasing biodiversity is key to MoorLife2020.
Which of the UK Peatland Strategy goals (conservation, restoration, adaptive management, sustainable management, coordination, communication) is your project helping to deliver?
Conservation: Our conservation work includes installing mini-dams in drainage channels to rewet the blanket bog, tackling areas of over-dominant plant species like heather by cutting dense areas, and trialling new techniques to rewet the moors (e.g. bunds). These actions will protect the integrity of 95 square kilometres (9,500 hectares) of active blanket bog.
Sustainable management: We use extensive scientific research and monitoring to back up our conservation work. This evidence improves our understanding of the benefits blanket bog provides and enables us to evaluate the conservation methods we use. MoorLIFE 2020 research and monitoring includes: setting up field labs, using aerial imagery to carry out landscape-scale remote sensing to create a map that shows the vegetation cover, and producing a carbon audit report to measure the carbon emitted through our conservation work against the carbon that will be stored by the repaired blanket bog.
Coordination and communication: Our pioneering programme of communications and community engagement has seen us develop the first ever ‘moor in a van’; our Bogtastic Van visits communities surrounding the Peak District and South Pennines. We have also developed a national wildfire recording tool to allow the wildfire-fighting community to record their fire data in a single place, an initiative that aims to increase our evidence base of how blanket bogs reduce the risk of wildfire
We have held and participated in conferences and seminars including BogFest 2017, which brought together nearly 300 experts on peatlands from across the globe. We also have a junior ranger group in Edale to inspire a new generation of conservationists.
What would you like to highlight as the projects top three achievements to date?
1: We’ve engaged with 14,593 members of the public (and still counting!), including 8554 people experiencing the Bogtastic van. We’ve also held 16 events to discuss best practice and share ideas with land managers, with a total attendance of over 450 people.
2: We’re particularly proud to have achieved great things despite the difficulties of working through the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. We’ve exceeded our annual targets for sphagnum planting, gully and grip blocking, dominant species cutting and bare peat revegetation, and have produced several scientific papers.
3: Science is at the heart of MoorLife2020. “We take an evidence-based approach to moorland restoration, using data to inform and drive best practice in moorland conservation” says Senior Research and Montioring Officer Tia Croch. “Research and Monitoring plays a big role in MoorLIFE2020, using traditional and innovative (remote sensing) techniques to monitor biodiversity and other key ecosystem services on a number of sites. We are collaborating with a number of research institutions, and are presenting our findings at events such as conferences, public events, workshops, and seminars, as well as publishing our findings in reports and academic journal papers.”
Have there been any lessons learnt along the way that you would like to share?
“Working in partnership is of huge value” says Project Manager Diarmuid Crehan. “For example, our blanket bog guidance was agreed by twenty three different organisations with a variety of backgrounds and purposes. This joined up approach creates a synergy which allows us to achieve a project on such a huge landscape scale.
“I would also say that one of MoorLIFE2020’s great strengths is that it delivers science, moorland restoration and communications all at the same time. This flexibility and teamwork within the Moors for the Future Partnership means the project has maximum impact.”
Are there any resources you have found useful or produced that you think might help other peatland projects?
Our blanket bog land management guidance was collaboratively produced in 2017 by representatives of the Uplands Management Group (UMG) in response to a request from Defra's Uplands Stakeholder Forum (USF) for best practice guidance.
Our Bogtastic van has been a fantastic tool for engagement – the world’s first bog in a van!
