A new partnership involving the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) will provide a blueprint for sustainable farming on UK peatlands.
Peatlands help mitigate climate change by absorbing and storing large amounts of carbon, as well as providing important habitats for rare insects and plants, and improving water quality. But most peatlands in the UK, including the Fens in Cambridgeshire, have been degraded by human activity, particularly drainage for agriculture, resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere.
The new five-year project, Peatland Progress: A New Vision for the Fens, which is backed by £8 million Lottery funding, is bringing together scientists, academics, businesses and land managers to explore the possibilities of wet farming, or paludiculture.
The partnership, led by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, has bought a farm at the Great Fen to carry out trials of crops that can be grown in waterlogged soils. These include bulrush, used to insulate buildings, and Sphagnum moss, which can be used in horticulture, as an alternative to peat.
The aim is to provide a model of this new form of agricultural production to inform and inspire conservation and farming practice on peat soils across the UK and globally.
UKCEH will be deploying flux towers at the site to monitor how the wet farming changes the uptake and emission of greenhouse gases, and the storage of carbon and water.
Dr Ross Morrison, a biometeorologist, says: “Wet farming, or paludiculture, has the potential to deliver multiple benefits and ecosystem services. However, the scientific evidence base for paludiculture in the UK is currently limited. We look forward to generating new data on how this emerging land use will impact greenhouse gas emissions, regional hydrology and biodiversity in lowland peatland environments.”
Dr Morrison explains that wet peatlands capture and store large amounts of atmospheric carbon, playing an important role in regulating the carbon and water cycles, and global climate. However, research led by UKCEH shows that, overall, our country’s peatlands now emit significantly more greenhouse gases than they remove from the atmosphere.
The Fens in East Anglia have been particularly affected, with large areas drained over the past 400 years, but which now produce a disproportionate share of the UK’s horticultural salad crops and one-third of England’s fresh vegetables.
The new project, supported by the National Heritage Lottery Fund Heritage Horizon programme, will involve rewetting of the land. The site will provide clean water for neighbouring Woodwalton Fen nature reserve. It will unite the Great Fen's northern and southern sections, making more space for nature and creating a sustainable, working wet landscape which supports wildlife as well as the prosperity, wellbeing and employment of local people.
The partnership will establish links with community groups including a local counselling service, creating nature-based programmes that support young people experiencing mental health issues and their families, giving them the confidence to know that small changes can make a big difference.