Peat blanket bog restoration in the Yorkshire uplands

A visit to Fleet Moss, one of the world's most degraded peat bogs

It’s March 2024 and I find myself 560m above sea level on top of a hill in the Yorkshire dales overlooking a patch of ground that at first doesn’t look like much but, I can assure you, is incredibly exciting.

“I pity the poor person who has to restore that,” were the first words Jenny Sharman said in 2017 about Fleet Moss, a blanket peat bog that has faced some of the worst degradation in the country. That was before she ended up being that very person, overseeing the project two years later.

Jenny and her colleague Lyndon Marquis work for Yorkshire Peat Partnership, one of a handful of non-profit organisations doing some of the most important habitat restoration work. Together with their colleagues they are slowly reversing the damage done to peat habitat to help the unique wildlife that need them and to lock in carbon once again, contributing to reduce the existential threat of global warming. Their work benefits all of us.

Blanket peat bogs are areas of flat or gently sloped land with over 0.5m of peat, where the ground stays saturated because the amount of rainfall exceeds water loss. It usually forms over acidic bed rock and increases in acidity over time (Wildlife Trusts). Waterlogged ground creates anaerobic conditions that prevents dead plant material fully decomposing, trapping the carbon the plant absorbed from the air as it grew into the substance we call peat.

Last century, after the second world war, land owners were encouraged by the Government to dig channels to drain peat bogs for grazing (Fleet Moss was never used for peat compost). As Lyndon puts it, “that hasn’t worked out well for grazing or the peat.” When peat dries and comes into contact with oxygen, the conditions become aerobic and decomposition continues, releasing all of that trapped carbon back into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

As we walk onto the bog I follow Jenny’s footsteps carefully to not lose a boot in a pool of water. The first pool we pass is full of frog spawn and we can hear the calls of lapwings on this dry but windy day. But then, every day is windy up on Fleet Moss.

“Those mounds are called hags”, says Jenny, pointing to raised areas covered in heather and moss. I ask if they are natural formations on bogs, “no that’s the previous height of the peat, where we’re standing is where it’s dropped to.” My heart sinks, we’re standing in a huge flat expanse of ground as big as a sports pitch with hardly any of the hags around us, at least two metres of peat lost from this whole, huge space.

Lots of small streams of water criss-cross the area and blocking their flow are bales of natural fibre. Coir is being used for many of them, which is one of the best materials for the time being because it has little nutrient value, meaning it won’t change the chemical balance of the fragile peat habitat.

The team have done calculations before their project started, and restored peat locks in more carbon than the carbon cost of using coir (a waste product of coconuts). That said, Yorkshire Peat Partnership’s goal is to find something more local and they’re trialling other fibres, though sadly wool and test plant materials are showing signs of being too nitrogen rich.

The bales slow the flow of water enough to stop run-off eroding more peat, allowing plants to regrow. What we see around us was once bare peat until the bales were installed by the team. Crossing them I feel like I’m walking on a bridge of pillows, but then, most of the bog is spongy and soft.

Entering one of the gullies to the call of a golden plover, we’re met by a heartbreaking scene as the scale of damage to this peat habitat is put into perspective. Walls of exposed dry peat two metres high or more enclose us. We’re standing where 4,000 - 6,000 years of peat and wildlife habitat should have been. It takes on average a year to form just 1mm of peat.

“These weren’t dug out, the drainage channels, called grips, are much smaller. These large gullies are caused by erosion after the bog was dried by the grips,” Jenny explains that all of this material gets washed down into the flood prone valley below. “Tracks, walls and fields have been destroyed after stones and huge amounts of water washed down from Fleet Moss, scouring out the landscape as they went – the force of water can be incredible!”

“Around 70% of mains water comes from peat bogs in the UK but if that includes peat run off, their acidity is raised and water companies have to spend more to process and clean all of that water.”

In the larger gullies, heavy rocks that won’t wash away are piled to form permeable dams, which slow the water and trap eroded peat behind them. That peat raises the level of the channel base slightly, which will allow the team to increase the height of dams and slowly fill the areas back in. In most areas however, it is a process that will take many years. If it takes roughly a year to form 1mm of new peat, to restore over 2 metres means the project could be running for a long time.

Jute matting is pegged to fragile gully sides to stop any more peat washing away. This holds the peat in, but also prevents undercutting of the peat sides, which causes the sides to collapse into the flowing water. Into the jute matting plants are seeded or planted as plugs, though Jenny has noticed over the years that most mosses and other bog plants naturally self-sow. The results can be seen on the base of the gullies, plants now carpet them where before was exposed peat.

Each of the restoration barriers have moorland plants growing in or around them. Showing that if the habitat is restored, plant life will find its way back.

As we step out of the first long gully, and back onto the bog, Jenny shows us various mosses and other plants in water pools.

Peat bogs are much more complex than they first look. Most people have heard of spaghnum moss but Jenny describes the many different species of spaghnum. In fact, there are hundreds, and they all play different roles. Then there are the grasses, heathers, carnivorous sundews and other plants that only survive in these acidic, waterlogged locations. Each used by different insects and ground nesting birds to raise their young.

Water pools are home to frogs and are a vital habitat for dragonflies and other invertebrate. Forming a key food source for many of the resident birds, lizards and adders.

All of the colours of the moss, lichens, heathers and grasses are otherworldly, many like jewels as I lean in for a closer look. Much more beautiful than the bleak places we’re taught to fear. It’s a world in itself and as an artist, I can’t help be inspired by the tones and textures.

But when we walk up onto a hag, just as a short eared owl flies past us, we’re met with the full reality. Stretching into the distance, Fleet Moss rolls out before us like a battlefield.

As we near the end of our walk Jenny shows us one of Yorkshire Peat Partnership’s early success stories, where a vast run-off once flowed.

It used to be laden with so much peat “it was like watching a lava flow.” The run-off basin is still there, but it’s no longer bare peat, slowed enough to allow plants to regrow thanks to the team’s measures. Jenny stands on top of one of the stone traps while inspecting it, glad to see the dam is working.

New techniques are looking to a sticky natural mulch containing seeds called Peat Fix that can be sprayed onto bare peat to try and stop its erosion, giving seedlings a chance. As well as dead stems of heather to help minimise wind and rain damage.

Tracing the flow back across the bog on our way home, the extent of the team’s work strikes me as remarkable. Thousands of barriers across hundreds of hectares on a near inaccessible terrain. The challenge is obvious, to maintain the work until nature can tip the balance. Damage done to Fleet Moss in the past is colossal, but it makes me glad to meet people like Jenny and Lyndon who are working hard to save our natural world. They need all the support we can give them.

As we leave, the moor is alive with the sound of bird calls excited for the warmth of spring, another owl flies over us, busy hunting through the low moor plants as lapwings look for nesting spots.

You can find out more about Yorkshire Peat Partnership and support their work by visiting their website and following them on Instagram.