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This year on National Meadows Day, we are campaigning for the protection of irreplaceable meadows – and we need your help!
Our wildflower meadows are a powerful ally in the fight against climate change – but they are in trouble!
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It’s been a wild year in an even more wild landscape, from floods and collapsed waterways to peatland restoration and hope for the future – join us to learn more about this incredible habitat.
Peat bogs are wild, exposed places – used to withstanding harsh weather and winter storms.
Our Munsary Peatland Nature Reserve, which is part of the larger Flow Country in Scotland, is no stranger to extreme weather. However, the storms of the past year were even stronger than we’ve seen before.
Working in these conditions can be testing – we’ve seen extreme flooding, walls knocked down and waterways collapsed.
It’s not all bad news from the reserve however, as we are making exciting steps forwards to restoring the bog and protecting it for the future, despite a changing and challenging climate.
Munsary is a blanket bog, made up of peat, which in places is up to 7 metres deep. It’s one of the UK’s most unique landscapes. The blanket bog here is one of the most extensive peatlands left in Europe.
It’s part of the Flow Country which covers 187,000 hectares of Caithness in the far north of Scotland.
This incredible reserve is part of the world’s first peatland UNESCO World Heritage site, an Important Plant Area (IPA) and a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
Munsary was hit by a lot of storms last winter, which came just as the peatland was recovering from last year’s floods. On a recent visit, our Head of Plantlife Scotland, Alistair Whyte saw the damage this has caused.
In some areas, access tracks in the peatland had been almost completely washed away.
The relentless snow drifts and winds, didn’t just cause damage to the landscape, they knocked down fences and walls, opening up the area to unmanaged grazing. This influx of livestock freely accessing the reserve could trample sensitive peatland, leading to even more damage and undoing years of careful restoration work.
In another blow to the fragile ecosystem, a culvert on the reserve collapsed under pressure from raging torrents.
We are now looking to the future, to continue to restore and protect the peatland.
Currently, we are in the process of developing the final phase of our peatland restoration at Munsary.
This final phase of work, if funded, will bring machinery on-site next year to block the last ditches, reprofile exposed areas of peat, and pilot a new bunding technique to help retain water on the drier parts of the bog. It’s a crucial step that could ensure the long-term health of the ecosystem.
However the storm damage at Munsary, means we are currently unable to get machinery on to site. Therefore, there is even more urgency to repair the infrastructure for the restoration work to begin.
The University of Highlands and Islands has been leading new climate modelling work through our on-site science programme.
The university has been modelling climate scenarios of various degrees of intensity over the next 100 years. The research shows that, if we complete the work, Munsary Peatland could remain highly resilient, even under extreme climate conditions.
The reserve could continue to retain its ability to function as a bog and store huge amounts of carbon, even in some extreme climate scenarios
Bogs like this are vital to buffer the impacts of climate change while supporting biodiversity.
This is a hopeful reminder that nature can bounce back. Conservation work can make a huge difference to not only restore habitats, but aid their resilience and protect them for the future.
The peat-rich Flow Country, which our Munsary Peatlands are part of, has been given the same standing as the Great Barrier Reef and the Grand Canyon.
Extraction of peat for gardening and horticulture continues to damage wildlife and our climate, despite government commitments to phase it out. Plantlife is calling on governments and industry to end the use of peat in gardening and horticulture to benefit nature and our climate.
Whether it’s your back garden, local park, community field or lawn, wildflower meadows are amazing spaces with so much to offer.
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