‘The start of the healing process’ | The Guardian

Back in February, the SWPP team headed out to an area of peatland restoration works on North Dartmoor with Sandra Laville, a journalist working with The Guardian newspaper.

Sandra and Jim Wileman, photographer, joined us for a cold, wet and windy day out on site, allowing us to show them both an area of past restoration works at Cranmere, a large example area of eroding degrading peat at Black Hill, and also contractors working in the Kneeset area of Dartmoor on Duchy of Cornwall land.

The works underway are extensive and vital, helping to raise and stabilise the local water table in the degrading peat, diversify wildlife habitat, improve water quality and quantity, and create the conditions needed for peat-forming sphagnum mosses to colonise and spread.

We spoke to Sandra about the effectiveness of local partnership working, the value of peatlands as a vast carbon store, the challenges we face, and the urgency to make the South West’s peatlands more resilient to cope with extreme climate and weather changes. Sandra spent time speaking with our contractor teams who work alongside the SWPP Project and Historic Environment teams throughout the restoration season to protect archaeology, restore peat and create a wetter and better landscape for all.

You can read the full article at this link here.

Peatland restoration works underway in the Kneeset area of Dartmoor, with newly-created peat bunds holding back water in the landscape. In time, these pools of water will help raise and stabilise the water table in the surrounding peat, diversify local plant species, and ‘bed in’ to the surrounding landscape.