Hooray for Peat Bogs

Conservationists have been working to dig out thousands of peat bunds into the moors of the Pennines in the Northwest of England. A bund is a scallop shape dug out of the soil and then banked up. The conservationists hope that these small pools will hold back water in the case of heavy rains and a changing climate.

They also hope that the half a million moss plants that they have set into the bunds will help cultivate a boggier environment which will hold water and carbon.

Peat bogs are amazing at storing carbon, in fact they are the largest terrestrial carbon store on Earth - storing more carbon than all other vegetation types combined. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, damaged peatlands release almost 6% of human-made carbon into the atmosphere (it’s human because we’ve let them dry out).

By encouraging and restoring the natural environment of these boggy areas, we can make a significant reduction to the carbon in the atmosphere. They don’t look like much, but they’re incredible.

Of the project, Maddi Naish, Rural Surveyor at the National Trust, wrote: "If you imagine a giant sponge which is covered in thousands of small holes and can hold large quantities of water - that's what we're aiming for here.”

These peat bog landscapes are naturally in areas of high rainfall, which often has damaging flood effects for communities that live nearby. The bunds may already have had an effect as the often flooded villages and towns at the bottom of these moors were shielded from the flooding unleashed by Storm Christoph earlier in the year.

The rainwater is trapped by these bunds, which then provide the nutrients for moss plants to thrive and thereby store carbon from the atmosphere. It’s a win win.

P.C: National Trust