Government funds are being made available from this month to protect peatlands, which cover 11 per cent of England’s landscape and provide habitats for birds such as the merlin and dunlin. They also supply 70 per cent of England’s drinking water, by filtering water that then drains into rivers and reservoirs, and they store more greenhouse gas than all of the country’s woodlands and forests combined. Peatland restoration projects include the reintroduction of sphagnum mosses and the construction of stone and heather bale dams which are essential in safeguarding carbon stocks and meeting climate change targets. Jim Sutton, head gamekeeper at Snailsden Moor in the Peak District, said: “Heather burning is a useful tool in the process of managing vegetation and for speeding up restoration work.” He added: “Overgrown, dry vegetation is much more likely to catch alight in the warm summer months and burn so hot that it severely damages the delicate peat beneath.” Members of the Upper Nidderdale moorland group are among those working to block long-standing agricultural drainage ditches and re-profile exposed peat hags with the aim of re-wetting the moors and helping to mitigate flooding. Historically, government policy has seen much of the peatland in England drained to improve land for livestock grazing. Efforts now are to make the uplands more diverse, through selective cutting and removal of heather,

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/grouse-moors-vital-for-peatlands-1-8532368

Government funds are being made available from this month to protect peatlands, which cover 11 per cent of England’s landscape and provide habitats for birds such as the merlin and dunlin. They also supply 70 per cent of England’s drinking water, by filtering water that then drains into rivers and reservoirs, and they store more greenhouse gas than all of the country’s woodlands and forests combined. Peatland restoration projects include the reintroduction of sphagnum mosses and the construction of stone and heather bale dams which are essential in safeguarding carbon stocks and meeting climate change targets. Jim Sutton, head gamekeeper at Snailsden Moor in the Peak District, said: “Heather burning is a useful tool in the process of managing vegetation and for speeding up restoration work.” He added: “Overgrown, dry vegetation is much more likely to catch alight in the warm summer months and burn so hot that it severely damages the delicate peat beneath.” Members of the Upper Nidderdale moorland group are among those working to block long-standing agricultural drainage ditches and re-profile exposed peat hags with the aim of re-wetting the moors and helping to mitigate flooding. Historically, government policy has seen much of the peatland in England drained to improve land for livestock grazing. Efforts now are to make the uplands more diverse, through selective cutting and removal of heather,

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/environment/grouse-moors-vital-for-peatlands-1-8532368