New volunteer roles available with SWPP
Do you know a bogbean from a bilberry? A sundew from a sedge? Would you like the opportunity to learn more about our local nature and spend time in some of the most important habitats in Cornwall and Devon?
If so, we’d love you to join our team of volunteers working as part of the South West Peatland Partnership to make a real difference to the future of our peatlands.
Peatlands are incredible and vital spaces for all of us. Upland areas across our region are formed of peat: water-logged soils made of partially-degraded plants. These boggy areas are crucial carbon-storing ecosystems that support rare and interesting species of global importance.
People walking across an area of peatland restoration on Bodmin Moor
Over centuries however, peatlands have become dried and degraded. Draining, peat cutting and land reclamation have negatively affected wildlife habitat, impacted waterways, increased runoff and flooding, and reduced the carbon storage capacity of peatland. Many areas have also lost many of the iconic and interesting plants, animals, insects and birds associated with healthy peatland landscapes.
The SWPP works together to change this, restoring water to degraded peatlands to help tackle the climate and ecological emergency. Funding for our works comes from Natural England’s Nature for Climate Peatland Grant scheme, with significant match funding from South West Water, the Duchy of Cornwall, the National Trust and Cornwall Council, with support in kind coming from many other vital partners, landowners, farmers, commoners and charities involved in the project.
Across Exmoor, Dartmoor and Cornwall, the SWPP is aiming to restore over 2,600 hectares of peatland before 2025. Our vision is of restored peatlands that support wildlife, store carbon, manage flooding, provide clean water, enhance archaeology and the historic environment, and champion livelihoods. Through restoration the SWPP is working to prevent 652,625 tonnes of CO2 equivalent from being released as peatlands continue to degrade.
To meet this target, we need your help.
Monitoring is a vital part of our work through which we collect data on the state of peatlands before restoration, understanding impacts on wildlife of rewetting methods, and analysing where our interventions can be most effective. We’re recruiting for monitoring volunteers to join us out on peatland areas and help to conduct surveys such as vegetation surveys, bird and invertebrate surveys, fixed-point photography collection, Eyes-on-the-Bog (peat growth and water table monitoring), and ground-truthing local peatland archaeology.
Travel expenses will be covered, and you can get involved at a schedule that works for you. So if you know someone who would like to brush up on their sphagnum moss ID, or can spot a bog asphodel a mile off, please visit this page here to see all volunteering roles, or drop Rachael Land an email on rland@southwestwater.co.uk to find out more about these roles or register your interest.