50-Year Project Aims To Breathe New Life Into The Uplands
The National Trust’s “biggest
and most ambitious” landscape-scale nature conservation initiative is being
launched in the Peak District today.
It aims to inspire people and
involve them in restoring a landscape of healthy peat bogs, diverse heaths and
natural woodland rich in wildlife.
With input from a wide range of
people and organisations, the Trust has mapped out a bold new 50-year vision
for 10,000 hectares (40 square miles) of land it looks after in the High Peak
moors.
They cover boulder-strewn
landscapes of rocky tors, dramatic valleys and cloughs and mile upon mile of
wild and remote bog and heath. The iconic Kinder Scout and the spectacular
Upper Derwent Valley are perhaps the best known parts, essential elements of
the much loved Peak District National Park, which is visited by more than 10
million people each year.
A remarkable landscape is made
all the more special by the fact it is nestled between Sheffield and Manchester
close to the homes of millions of people.
Jon Stewart, National Trust General Manager
for the Peak District, said: “This dramatic, beautiful and fragile landscape is
the ideal place for the biggest and most ambitious work that the Trust has ever
undertaken to develop a clear road map for one of its upland estates.
“Whilst there is much to celebrate about the
moors and their valley-sides there are massive management challenges such as
eroding peat, drying out bog, lost woodland, suppressed heathland vegetation
and maintaining good access. We want to work with those who care for and
have a stake in their future to address these challenges.”
Conservation work will restore
habitats such as bogs and heaths on the moor tops and heathland and woodlands
in steep valleys, known as cloughs.
The blanket bogs, rich in peat,
on the moors are of national and international significance. It’s vital
that this fragile habitat is maintained because severe erosion can release
carbon into the atmosphere and have a knock-on effect on the quality of
drinking water from peat ending up in reservoirs.
The peat found in the uplands of
the UK has as much carbon as the forests of Britain and France combined and the
High Peak moors alone store the equivalent of two years carbon emissions from
the city of Sheffield.
A priority for the vision will
be to keep the bogs wet through for example blocking gullies that have eroded
the landscape and making sure that there is plenty of vegetation cover.
Work has already begun on this on the plateau of Kinder Scout.
Work will also begin to increase
the spread of trees and shrubs – both naturally and through planting – in the
valleys to help restore lost wildlife habitat and a key part of the landscape,
improve water quality and help conserve soils.
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By creating the right conditions
it will be possible for valued species such as birds of prey, red grouse and
mountain hare to call the High Peak moors home in the decades to come.
One longer term measure of the
success of the vision would be creating the right conditions for the black
grouse to return to the moors; an upland bird that disappeared from the Peak
District in the 1990s.
Jon Stewart added: “We have learnt a huge
amount about how managing these moors to boost their wildlife and restore the
landscape can also have massive benefits for our drinking water quality, flood
management, carbon storage and people’s enjoyment, health and well-being.”
“They are in effect a life support
system. Managing the moors in tune with these benefits we believe
provides the best way forward for those making their living from the moors as
well. “
“So this vision is all about working with
people to care for the land whether that be our farm tenants, partners or the
many people that passionately love the Peak District to restore the landscape
and habitats, provide fantastic access to a wild place, deliver better water
quality and care for the carbon in these upland soils.”
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