Summer ‘24 with SWPP’s Education & Engagement Officer

The summer is the busiest time of year for me as the Education and Engagement Officer, with many events planned to take place in the fine summer weather, or more unpredictable British summer weather I should say. There have been a lot of opportunities for students and volunteers to get more involved with the work we do this summer, whilst learning more about peatlands and our restoration works.

We were fortunate to host 6 very enthusiastic Year 12 work experience students over two placement weeks, who assisted many of the team with on the ground planning works for the upcoming restoration season. We joined project officers in assessing where peatland restoration methods could be most used, and in revisiting existing restoration to see how effective last years work had been across Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin Moor.

‘It has been such an eye opener to see the work that goes on in restoring peatland and a real inspiration for careers in the environment sector in the future’.  

We joined the monitoring team who were completing vegetation surveys with the help of some of our other SWPP volunteers. The vegetation on site is an excellent indicator of the state of the peat below. In time, changes in this vegetation indicate changes in the water table and the condition of the peat. When the same areas are resurveyed we hope to see significant changes in the vegetation as a result of the peatland restoration works. The work experience students were able to chat with one volunteer who had completed one of the original surveys when works first started on Exmoor, learning from their experience to improve their identification skills of the bog species on the ground. As this was also a particularly wet day it had us sheltering in our vehicles for lunch, rather than chatting over a picnic on the moor. Fortunately, this didn’t put the work experience students off, they came back for more the next day!

We also went surveying with our historic environment officers, seeing what influences the past has had on the peat and how we preserve historic features during future restoration work. This was useful to be able to share with students some context of the condition of the peat we see today due to different activities in the past, to the possible future of the peatland after restoration works.

‘I really appreciated how well designed it was, being able to speak to so many people with different roles within the SWPP, see sites before, during and after restoration to compare the differences in diversity and habitat, take part in some of the surveys that are needed at the sites and learn more about our local peatland habitats was fascinating and a great opportunity.’

Work experience students learning about sphagnum mosses and other peatland vegetation species

This summer has seen its fair share of cancelled events due to uncooperative weather, but also many opportunities for our SWPP volunteers to join us in learning more about our peatlands, or working with us to maintain our restoration works.

We have held volunteer bog vegetation training days, which have then enabled our volunteers to assist with vegetation surveys over the summer. Bog beans to sundews, hare’s tail cotton grass to sphagnum capillifolium, they’ve learned a lot, and are learning more each time they come out on the moor.

Volunteer work parties of around a dozen volunteers have joined us up at Hangingstone Hill to repair 4 of the peat blocks that have been damaged since being made in 2019. Work by hand with spades is particularly tiring, and not practical for our main restoration approach, but is very rewarding and useful for repairs. Vegetation needs to first be carefully removed from nearby, then a shallow layer of peat dug to build up the damaged peat bund, followed by topping this peat bund off with the vegetation removed at the start then seal everything together. As I say tiring, but rewarding. It provides some great opportunities for learning about peatland restoration first hand, whilst of course getting a little bit damp ourselves in the process!

Written by Rachael Land, SWPP Education and Engagement Officer