Today is World Soil Day, an event that is held annually on 5 December to focus attention on the importance of sustainable and healthy soil ecosystems.
This year the Dorset Peat Partnership has been actively delivering restoration works on degraded peatland sites across the Dorset Heaths and mires. This is to improve the habitat condition and rewet sites that have been historically drained and caused peat soils to dry out.
Peatlands are an essential store of soil organic matter. Through the decomposition of plant matter, they capture carbon into the soil to form peat which stores carbon rather than releasing it back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is influencing climate change.
So far, the Dorset Peat Partnership have delivered ten of their 16 planned sites which are due for completion by March 2025. Working with skilled contractors, a variety of techniques to block and store water across these important peatland sites have been actioned by installing leaky log dams, solid timber dams, infilling drainage ditches with spoil, using peat from within the habitat to make blocks, and contouring bunds to pool water. Vegetation removal work has also been undertaken to stop water being removed from the system, trees, and scrub. Very dense areas of purple moor grass which have grown to heights way above ground level have been mulched down to allow water to interact with vegetation and support decomposition which is essential for sphagnum moss formation.
The progress of these restored sites will be continually monitored over time, and we hope to see many more peatland plants beginning to flourish in the coming years.
The Dorset Peat Partnership has summarised all of their sites into this StoryMap. Here you can find out where our 16 sites are located, and look at the 'before and after' images of what has happened during winter 2023-24. Future works will be taking place from September to March 2025, and will be updated on our story map as things progress.
