Work carried out to revegetate the bare peat in our southern catchment area has already shown dramatic results.
Blighted by wildfires, some caused when a World War two airplane crashed and burned, the Longdendale Valley has large areas of bare and eroding peat in particular at Arnfield, Quiet Shepherd Estates and Ashway Gap, which had around 70 hectares of bare peat prior to restoration.
The whole area now enjoys 20-50 per cent grass cover thanks to our Sustainable Catchment Management Plan (SCaMP) and the first signs have appeared that heather seedlings are also establishing.
Excellent wet and warm summer weather helped encourage growth. Hopefully the snow will have provided protection to the new vegetation this winter and the goal is for the heather to spread, then for other moorland species to colonise over time, and for the bare peat to largely disappear.
Re-vegetation of the bare peat used a combination of lime, fertiliser, grass and heather seeding, with a mesh called ‘geojute’ added to the steepest slopes to help hold the peat down, and 2m long coir rolls used to stop peat flowing off the flatter areas of the moor.
In the Goyt area, the moor was re-wetted by grip blocking using a mixture of peat and plastic dams. Grip blocking has been very successful with the pools created behind the dams filling with vegetation, including the highly desirable bog mosses Sphagnum.
Stock has also been reduced or removed so that vegetation can flourish.
There are the first signs of more Sphagnum cover in the surrounding blanket bog as well, which is assumed to be responding to the consistently wetter peat. The vegetation is also growing taller owing to the reduction in grazing.
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