Blackened hills to be restored with air assistance

And, today, more than 150 million moss “beads” will start being helicoptered in to the Peak District National Park, in an ambitious £5.5m scheme to help bring life back to the barren and blackened moors.

From today, the Moors for the Future Partnership will be airlifting 150 million beads of sphagnum moss into the hills, in an operation covering 2,400 acres of peat landscape in the national park and the South Pennines.

The scheme is part of “MoorLife”, one of the largest conservation projects in the UK, and sphagnum moss has been selected due to its peat-forming abilities.

In what is the first operation of its kind, specially-produced sphagnum gel beads – with the trademarked name “BeadaMoss” – will be airlifted by helicopter in five-litre tubs, starting on Black Hill which lies close to the Woodhead Pass, south of Holmfirth.

Matt Buckler, conservation works manager for the Moors for the Future Partnership, said: “All our works to date have been about stabilising the ground until peat-forming vegetation can develop.

“Sphagnum is the building block that created and sustains our peatland moorlands and so this project is probably the most important landscape-scale delivery phase of works ever in UK moorland restoration.”

The project started with an original small source of local sphagnum. This was then multiplied in laboratory conditions and, finally, placed within special gel beads.

Each tiny bead, described as being about the size of a small fingernail, contains several small strands of moss.

The gel helps to weigh down the moss and helps with its application on the moors, as well as providing a food source and protection from the harsh upland climate.

The aim is for the moss to grow out of the bead, colonise the moors and bring the landscape back to a “healthy and sustainable” condition.

According to the Moors for the Future Partnership – made up of organisations including the Environment Agency, Natural England, the National Trust, the Peak District National Park Authority, United Utilities and Yorkshire Water –- the bead production requires only a very small amount of locally-sourced sphagnum.

A spokesman for the partnership said: “A large-scale landscape conservation solution is needed to combat the large-scale devastation caused by 150 years of industrial pollution and wildfires on the moors.

“This has resulted in an insufficient local source of sphagnum and no vegetation, just barren black expanses.

“Previous conservation works by the Moors for the Future team means that, where you once would have seen bare eroding peat on Black Hill, now there is a new healthy layer of grasses and moorland plants.

“The sphagnum beads will be spread by hand on to re-vegetated areas by staff, volunteers, Peak District National Park rangers and a local contractor to act as a key element in the formation of new peat.”

Jim Dixon, chief executive of the Peak District National Park Authority, added: “This pioneering work and its vast scale is an amazing achievement and milestone in the project and the partnership’s history.

“Not only will it benefit communities and wildlife in the national park but also across the South Pennines and Europe.

“I would like to extend my thanks to all staff and partners involved for their continued hard work, commitment and belief in this pioneering approach to return our valuable moorlands back to a healthy and sustainable condition.”

Lord Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency, has visited Black Hill to see past conservation works.

Endorsing the latest scheme, he said: “The re-introduction of sphagnum moss, in this truly innovative project, will add still further to the remarkable success of the Moors for the Future programme. 

“Restoring the peat cover for the Peak District moorlands has huge conservation, environmental and climate change benefits.”

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