Sunday 7 April 2013

£1m to restore peatlands - Wessenden Moor, Yorkshire


This is another example of a water company working with a landowner and Natural England to deliver benefits from better management of peat, including re-vegetating bare peat and raising water levels.  See the article in the Yorkshire Post for more detail.

Wessenden Moor is an area I know well, as it was one of the four moors in the Demonstration Moors Project that the Trust ran for Defra in the five years to 2006.  The moor is a large open area of moorland above Marsden in Yorkshire, at the very northern edge of the Peak District National Park.  It would be defined mostly as a blanket bog.  Much of the peat surface had been eroded and work was underway to revegetate is when I was last there a few years ago.

The photos show a typical area of eroded peat with much bare peat on show, and area where heather brash has been spread to start the re-vegetation process and a general view over the moor.

This type of work has to be good news all round; it will: make the ground more productive, stabilise the eroding peat surface, improve the quality of the water coming off the moor into Yorkshire Water's reservoirs, improve biodiversity and improve the look of the moor for the large number of visitors to the area.

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