Monday 2 June 2014

Peat restoration at Little Firthhope

We've recently been doing a fair bit of work looking at restoring areas of eroded peat across some of our sites. Quite a lot of the damage over the years has been done by grazing and water erosion and as we no longer have grazing animals at Carrifran Wildwood we can take some action to try and prevent any further erosion.


Peat forms naturally over a long time at a rate of 1-2mm per year. It is referred to as a 'carbon sink' which essentially means it holds a lot of carbon. Once the peat has become waterlogged it releases the carbon back into the atmosphere. By taking action, we can try to slow down and stop this continuing erosion and waterlogging.


Through Peatland Action we were given some money for works up at Little Firthhope. We've bought a number of coir rolls (made from coconut fibres) and lengths of jute. The plan is to head up to Little Firthhope this weekend to install these in some of the most eroded areas and camp out for the night. But first of all we had to get the materials up there - cue local contractor Derek Murray and his ex Swedish tracked super vehicle.


It was a bit of a white knuckle ride but we made it up the slopes through Talla and onto Little Firthhope. 

The restoration camping events, Save the Bog Bilberry High Camps, are running  7th-8th June and 12th-13th July. We'll be putting up pictures on the blog to show you how we got on and if anyone would like to join us please email hughchalmers@live.co.uk.

Lynn
Site Officer

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