Staff, colleagues, volunteers and partners met up to reflect on the challenges and triumphs over the past decade and a half of peatland restoration across the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors National Parks and Nidderdale National Landscape.
Starting in 2009, YPP had brought 46,952 ha of peatland into restoration management by the end of March 2024, which is 50% of the estimated 94,220 ha of peatland in its operational area. To achieve this, YPP has:
- Secured £6.5 million to cover core costs (e.g. staff, vehicles, equipment and office costs)
- Secured £30 million of capital funds to carry out direct peatland restoration
- Completed foot surveys of 70,825ha of peatland
- Completed restoration plans for 67,623 ha of peatland
- Planted 3.8 million plug plants, including 2 million sphagnum plugs
- Blocked almost 3,000 km of gulleys and drainage ditches
- by installing 253,000 sediment traps (dams) to slow the flow of water on the fells
The event celebrated not only huge gains made in physical restoration but also progress in surveying, mapping, restoration planning and techniques, such as their innovative Peatfix product that will shortly be deployed in the field.
Rosie Snowden, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Peat Programme Manager, said:
“It’s a genuine privilege to lead a team of such dedicated, talented people, all committed to the same goal for amazing wildlife. The rate and quality of our restoration has accelerated exponentially in the past few years.
“We also need to acknowledge we couldn’t have achieved nearly so much without the support of our partners and funders or the co-operation and participation of the landowners, their agents, gamekeepers, farmers and tenants on whose land we work.”
Dr Tim Thom, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s Wild Ingleborough Programme Manager and founder of YPP, said:
“I began Yorkshire Peat Partnership with a target to raise the profile of Yorkshire’s upland peatlands and begin the slow process of restoring them to fully functioning blanket bogs; I don’t think that even then I believed that we would have 50% under restoration within 15 years. It is a remarkable collaborative achievement. I used to describe peatlands as the Cinderella habitat, a unique environment working hard to store carbon, reduce flood risk and keep our water clean yet abused and ignored by society. Well, our peatland Cinderella is now the star of the ball and treated with the respect it deserves thanks to Yorkshire Peat Partnership.”
Dr Rob Stoneman, Vice Chair of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme:
“What a magnificent achievement for everyone involved. It’s great that the policy space is finally catching up to the aspiration and potential of Yorkshire Peat Partnership. Let’s hope this new Government cannot only keep up but exceed this momentum.”
Yorkshire Peat Partnership, led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, was formed in 2009 to address the degraded peatlands stretching across North Yorkshire. You can find out more about their work at www.yppartnership.org.uk and their 15th anniversary report is available to download.
