Peatland Progress

Peatland Progress: A New Vision for the Fens is a 5-year National Lottery Heritage Fund project bringing hope for wildlife, the climate, farming and communities in the Cambridgeshire Fens.

The project is tackling climate change, biodiversity loss and the anxieties of the next generation head-on through the restoration of Speechly's Farm, bringing together the north and south ‘halves’ of the Great Fen. By creating new wetland habitat for wildlife on this new land purchase, Peatland Progress is allowing us to achieve a core purpose of the Great Fen, to buffer, protect and link our two precious fragments of fen habitat: Holme Fen and Woodwalton Fen National Nature Reserves. 

We’ll also be demonstrating a new system of land management, wet farming - or paludiculture - at farm-scale, a UK first. In this 120 hectare area, Peatland Progress will feature crops such as typha bulrush and sphagnum moss, building on successful three year trials. Typha has many applications including lightweight insulation and filling for clothing; sphagnum is a growing medium capable of retaining 20 times its dry weight in water. This work will inform and inspire both conservation and farming practice on peat soils across the UK and further afield, with the new wet landscape preventing the loss of peat soils and locking in carbon dioxide. 

Work has started to bring together scientists, academics, business people and land managers to explore the possibilities of this new farming system and its new crops. Peatland Progress is also bringing people closer to nature to reap its benefits for health and wellbeing. A new people friendly landscape will be created in the centre of the Great Fen enabling people to experience nature in close-up.

At New Decoy Farm we’ll be bringing people into the heart of the Great Fen; land-forming a new visitor-friendly landscape which “shop-windows” all to be seen further afield and creating a Mobile Inspiration Hub telling the story of our work, to show that global climate change is being tackled locally.

Peatland Progress will raise transformation to new levels; it will complete a vast sustainable, vibrant, working wet landscape rich in wildlife, develop climate change science, inspire, bring genuine improvement to people’s lives, and be a mainstay of local prosperity and wellbeing and employment.

This project is possible thanks to generous funding The National Lottery Heritage Fund, who announced an £8 million Heritage Horizons grant to the Great Fen for this visionary new project. 

The Landmark Appeal to raise the £400,000 deposit for Speechly's Farm was also successful and we're very grateful for all your support. Thank you!

Our Partners:

The Young People's Counselling Service (YPCS) 

YPCS are our local partners: together we’ll create nature-based interventions and programmes to support young people experiencing mental health issues and their families, connecting them with nature, giving them the confidence to know that small changes can make a big difference, bringing hope in the future. 

Mariana Delgado Vásquez, Operations Director, said: “We are incredibly happy to be working alongside the Wildlife Trust BCN in the Peatland Progress project. As children and young people are facing more anxiety relating to the climate change crisis worldwide, we want to work with the youth here in the Fens to take action in order to process that ‘eco-anxiety’ and show that small changes that we make in our personal lives can have a big impact in the overall picture of how the world will look like in the future. And for young people and their families to be able to enjoy such a wonderful nature space so close to home.”

Alison Graham, chair, said: “YPCS are first and foremost a charity that provides counselling but if we can achieve other gains in this exciting partnership with the Wildlife Trust, and engage young people in the natural world by igniting a passion for conservation and open horizons to hope and the future, then we are part of a very rich intervention indeed.’’

UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH)

World-leading climate change scientists from UKCEH will be measuring greenhouse gas flux gathering data to show how wet farming locks in carbon dioxide.

Dr Ross Morrison, biometeorologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said: “Peatlands capture and store large amounts of atmospheric carbon, playing an important role in regulating the carbon and water cycles and global climate. Despite this, large areas of peatland have been degraded by economic activity, especially drainage for agriculture and forestry. Drainage causes these carbon dense ecosystems to release large quantities of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, contributing to climate warming.

“Wet farming has the potential to deliver multiple benefits and ecosystem services. However, the scientific evidence base for paludiculture in the UK is currently limited, so 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.”

The University of East London

The University's experts in paludiculture will be advising us on our wet farming methods and crops.

Jack Clough, University of East London, said: “Peatland Progress provides a rare opportunity to increase the connectivity between two separate peatland nature reserves. This will most importantly lead to enhanced long-term sustainability for both areas, but also provides the space and funding to expand research into wetland friendly farming beyond the initial trial plots taking place at the Great Fen.

“This is hugely exciting as wet farming, as a nature-based solution, offers real ecosystem benefits through carbon emission reductions, biodiversity gain and water chemistry improvements. Wet farming also opens opportunities to develop new products and markets in areas such as bio-based building materials, peat replacement and much more. Peatland Progress comes at the perfect time, as wet farming is in its infancy here in the UK, so will have a huge positive impact as a demonstration project.”