Footsteps on the path to a career in moorland restoration

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By Robbie Carnegie, Senior Communications Officer at Moors for the Future Partnership

For the last 20 years, Moors for the Future Partnership has protected damaged blanket bog habitats across the Peak District and South Pennines. It provides evidence-based conservation, backed up by innovative public engagement. The Partnership has raised £50 million of public and private funding to deliver restoration over 35 square kilometres of bare and eroding peat and created 3 square kilometres of native clough woodlands.

Healthy peat moors:

• Provide a unique habitat for a wide range of wildlife.
• Absorb and store carbon – peat is the single biggest store of carbon in the UK, storing the equivalent of 20 years of all UK CO2 emissions and keeping it out of the atmosphere.
• Provide good quality drinking water – 70% of our drinking water comes from these landscapes. Damaged peat erodes into the reservoirs so that water companies have to spend more money cleaning the water for consumption.
• Help reduce the risk of flooding to communities living downstream.

    
Moors for the Future Partnership is led by the Peak District National Park Authority. It receives financial support from the Environment Agency, National Trust, South Pennines Park, RSPB, Severn Trent, United Utilities, Yorkshire Water, and support and advice from Natural England, National Farmers Union, Heather Trust, Woodland Trust, ethical finance sector and the British Mountaineering Council.

The Partnership has a staff team of conservation works officers, research scientists and communications professionals delivering the three strands of its project goals. Its team has always come from a wide range of backgrounds, bringing a wide variety of skills to this important work.

Moorland restoration involves a number of processes, many of which can be laborious and time-consuming.

• The bare peat is stabilised using heather brash, lime, fertiliser, nurse crops of grasses and native seed from heather, cross-leaved heath and wavy-haired grass.
• The moors are rewetted through the building of gully blocks (low, permeable dams) to slow the flow of rainfall from the moors.
• Planting sphagnum plug plants by hand, which will eventually grow into a carpet of the bog-growing moss. 
     

Conservation Works Officers will typically develop creative upland management solutions on sites – preparing documents and reports, overseeing contracts to ensure they meet specified quality standards and environmental, time and financial requirements, preparing maps and documents and liaising with volunteers, other partner organisations, landowners and specialist external contracts engaged in delivering MFFP projects. These activities take place both on site and in the office.

As well as these capital works, the Moors for the Future Partnership team also includes Science and Monitoring experts, and communications professionals.

Conservation Works Officer Jody Vallance came from a career as a teacher, before joining the Partnership as a Communications and Engagement Officer. However, a lifetime of a love of the moors, and taking opportunities to experience the ‘hands-on’ work of the Partnership led to her change of role. Speaking in 2022, Jody said:

“I’ve been passionately writing and talking about peat, bogs, sphagnum moss and moorland creatures on a daily basis for over five years, in my role as a communications officer for Moors for the Future Partnership. I love the moors, visiting them often for runs and walks. But normally, I don’t actually do the practical work. Now, the conservation team have a tight deadline and I’ve jumped at the chance to help with the survey.”

In 2020, former Senior Research & Monitoring Officer Tia Crouch, talked about her career in conservation science, and what first sparked her interest in the field of peat bogs. Despite a love of the great outdoors as a child, her A levels had centred around languages. However, after seven years’ working and travelling, she took a BSc in Environmental Science. Tia explained:

“After graduating, I was lucky enough to be offered a 3-month Research Assistant post with the University. This involved carrying out condition assessments of intertidal habitats in the South of England, including mud flats. I had a great time and gained valuable experience but did decide not to work on mud flats again . . . ultimately ending up working on peat bogs instead.”

Many of the Moors for the Future Partnership team honed their experience by taking advantage of volunteering activities. Speaking in 2014, Jane Price, who went on to become a Conservation and Works Officer, talked about her time as a volunteer:

“Volunteering is a brilliant way to get experience and to find out if conservation is for you. I've learned new skills and taken part in science - for an amateur scientist that is a great opportunity. … It's great because you learn so much during the training and can then immediately put what you have learnt into practice. It has helped me see the moors in a different way and be more focused on nature and the surrounding landscape.”

Clearly, there is no one route into the work of Moors for the Future Partnership. Other staff members have come from backgrounds as diverse as the military, business and the arts, but all have been drawn to the Partnership by the worthwhile nature of its work. For those beginning their career, however, there is no doubt that experience can play an essential part. Speaking in 2020, Mollie Hunt, former Project Manager for the Partnership, gave her thoughts on how to get into the world of peatland restoration:

“My best advice to anyone starting out would be to get stuck in wherever you can and take every opportunity that comes up. Whether that's with your local park volunteer group or with a bigger charity like the National Trust, any amount of time you can give to learning and getting experience will go a big way in setting up your future conservation career. There's definitely an element of right place and right time, but being in lots of places lots of times does a great job of increasing your odds!”

Find out more at www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk

 

First published in CJS Focus on Land and Habitat Management in association with the Landscape Institute on 5 June 2023. Read the full issue here

 

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