Peatland Restoration Initiative

   

    Article first published in:
    Wicklow Mountain Views – The Newsletter of the Wicklow Uplands Council.
    Issue No. 31 – Winter 2022

Peatland Restoration Initiative

 

Perhaps one of the most important collaborative partnerships to emerge from the SUAS Project, has been with the National Parks and Wildlife Service who have responsibility for both the management of Wicklow Mountains National Park, and oversight of the Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) lands that surround it. 

Working in close cooperation, they have in recent years, identified a number of sites within, and adjoining, the 23,000 hectares of Ireland’s largest national park, where areas of extensive bare peat on mountainside slopes and ridges have little hope of recovery without planned intervention measures. 

In an effort to restore the natural vegetation and prevent further loss of peat to these fragile ecosystems, an innovative peatland restoration initiative has been underway over the last two years. The first large-scale project of its type to be trialled in Ireland, it has two key strands; to regenerate vegetation made up mostly of heather and mosses, and to restore blanket bogs  overall water retention capacity, by damming gullies formed over previous decades through extensive natural erosion and human activities.

 

Habitat Restoration

Inspired by techniques pioneered in the UK by conservation organisations such as the ‘Moors for the Future’, the multi-staged process of habitat restoration began with the sustainable harvesting of heather cuttings or ‘brash’ as its also referred to, by conservation rangers from the NPWS on SAC land during the autumn months of 2021.

Acting as a seed source, and with the rough cuttings also offering protection from the harsh elements of the winter ahead, the material has over the last 6 months, been spread out over the designated areas of bare peat by the various teams on each site. 

A nursery crop of specially formulated grasses, along with fertiliser, has also been added to assist with both soil stability and the germination of the heather seed. The grasses will die out naturally once the fertiliser depletes and the heather has prospered and the mosses have recolonised. 

With the task now completed, these areas have been fenced off to protect against grazing animals, joining several other exclusion areas recently installed on several locations to monitor grazing impact and to encourage vegetation growth within. Signage explaining the initiative in detail has also been erected, should any roaming hiker be curious about the new additions to the landscape. 

 

Restoring Water Retention

Naturally created over millennia, the peat soils commonly found on the open mountains of county Wicklow, are in essence a giant reservoir that provides important fresh water sources that serve the needs of counties Dublin and Wicklow. Capturing and naturally filtering rainfall, the organic matter moderates the release of water year-round to upland streams and the headwaters for rivers such as the Liffey, Vartry, Kings, Dodder, Dargle and the Avoca.

Damaged and degraded mountaintops are susceptible to water runoff, effortlessly causing the erosion of soft peat and creating underlying instability to blanket bogs, which ultimately affects the ecological quality of these invaluable water sources downstream.

Through an elaborate work programme, collectively, hundreds of dams (made from untreated timber), have now been constructed to reduce the water runoff and the further loss of peat, by ensuring the water table is restored to more naturally occurring levels. This re-wetting of the habitat allows mosses – particularly sphagnum species – to recolonise naturally in the coming years, which in turn reinvigorates the carbon sequestration process and ensures overall soil stability. 

One of the unique characteristics of this collective restoration initiative, is the logistics being resourced and deployed to enable work to commence on the high altitude and remote sites. To achieve this, all of the material required was airlifted by helicopter, as part of a complex multi-day operation in the spring. A total cargo payload of over 50 tonnes, that included 200 ‘builders bags’ of heather cuttings, grass seed, over 2kms of fencing and enough timber to build up to a 1,000 dams, was distributed to the various mountainside depots with over 100 lifts. 

Given the scale and logistical challenges that have required careful management, the multi-stakeholder approach has been vital to the successful implementation of the laborious restoration work. Through the SUAS Project, and with the support of local NPWS conservation rangers, the hill-farmers of Granamore, Carrigeenduff and Ballynultagh (Mullaghcleevaun East Top), who are actively participating in the Project, have undertaken restoration actions across their sites. The largest area subject to habitat restoration is on the Barnacullian site, within the Wicklow Mountains National Park, and is being managed and carried out by NPWS conservation rangers, with voluntary assistance from Mountaineering Ireland and the environmental community group, ReWild Wicklow.

In July, Minister for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan, visited the Wicklow Mountains National Park to view and experience first-hand, the work being undertaken on the ridge of Barnacullian. Meeting with key stakeholders, the minister observed several examples of damaged habitats, and viewed the substantial restoration actions to remedy the situation, that were firmly underway. 

Generously spending much of the afternoon on location, the visit created an ideal opportunity for everyone to openly discuss the many factors contributing to the decline in upland habitats, both locally and nationally, and to explore possible solutions to addressing them on a larger scale.

Perhaps the real success of this project – and indeed future initiatives focussed on Ireland’s upland areas that have damaged and degraded habitats and water quality issues –is the demonstration of how a collaborative approach taken by diverse stakeholders can achieve the much-needed response to begin addressing some of the large and complex challenges facing the Wicklow and Dublin Uplands.

This includes state agencies such as the NPWS, NGOs such as Wicklow Uplands Council and the SUAS Project, and working closely with hill-farmers to create shared conservation goals to ensure our great natural assets, our uplands, are a thriving ecosystem and natural resource into the future.

–  Photos featured in this article appear courtesy of Mick Kelly and Ann Fitzpatrick.

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