A joined-up approach to wetland restoration
WaterLANDS is an initiative to improve biodiversity, ecosystems and the climate through wetland restoration. Its UK team is supporting the Great North Bog.
The WaterLANDS UK team, with members from iCASP and water@leeds, collaborates across sectors and disciplines to restore the vital blanket bog at a large scale.
Across Europe, WaterLANDS supports the hands-on restoration of wetland sites covering 10,500 hectares.
Wetland restoration is complex, and previous attempts have been too localised or fragmented to make a significant difference to the re-establishment of wetland ecosystems and species.
By engaging with local communities and stakeholders, WaterLANDS ensures that wetland restoration results not only in environmental gains but also in social and economic benefits for the communities involved.
Water@leeds hosts one of the WaterLANDS 15 knowledge sites, where past experiences are used to create best practice approaches that inform future wetland restoration across Europe.
Great North Bog
The Great North Bog coalition brings together the North Pennines National Landscape team, Yorkshire Peat Partnership, Moors for the Future Partnership, Northumberland Peat Partnership, Cumbria Peat Partnership and Lancashire Peat Partnership to protect and restore northern England’s upland peatlands.
These include four National Parks and three National Landscapes. The site is home to around 92% of the upland peat in England, stores 400 million tonnes of carbon and supports a complex ecosystem.
The blanket bogs across the Great North Bog have been heavily degraded as a result of human activity such as burning, artificial drainage, livestock grazing and afforestation.
Peatland restoration organisations are taking urgent action to conserve and restore our peatlands, contributing significantly to the UK’s climate and carbon sequestration targets.
Europe’s wetlands
Wetlands include swamps, marshes, peatlands, floodplains and ponds.
They’re home to 40% of the world’s species, and contain diverse ecosystems. They store and capture carbon, remove environmental pollutants, and protect communities from flooding.
Europe has already lost up to 90% of its original wetlands, resulting in massive biodiversity loss, water and food shortages, devastating floods and fires, coastal subsidence and erosion.
WaterLANDS aims to rectify this with its large-scale, joined-up approach to restoration.
