13/03/2026

The RSPB has completed a major peatland-restoration project at Lakenheath Fen, rewetting 120 ha of drained fen on the Suffolk-Norfolk border.

The restored area – equivalent to 168 football pitches – was formerly arable farmland. By retaining rainfall and installing a network of dams, ditches and sluices, reserve staff have raised water levels to recreate a mosaic of fen and wet grassland.

The work is designed to benefit breeding waders, notably Northern Lapwing, Common Redshank and Eurasian Oystercatcher. UK breeding populations of lapwing have fallen by 63% since 1967, while redshank and oystercatcher have declined by 45% and 21% respectively since the mid-1990s, largely owing to habitat loss.

Birds return to restored wetlands

Lapwing have already been recorded on the newly restored peatland, alongside Western Marsh Harrier and a suite of large waterbirds including Great, Little and Western Cattle Egrets and Grey Heron.

Lakenheath Fen lies within The Fens, a landscape that once covered 400,000 ha of eastern England. Less than 2% of this original wetland remains, following centuries of drainage for agriculture. Nationally, an estimated 80% of peatlands are degraded.

Beyond its importance for birds, peat restoration has climate benefits. Although UK peatlands cover only about 12% of land area, they store an estimated 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon. Rewetting prevents further carbon loss from oxidising soils.

Win-win for waders

The RSPB says long-term management will focus on maintaining suitable breeding conditions for waders, with further restoration planned if funding allows.

Nature Reserve Manager Dave Rogers said: "These peaty soils will all be lost in The Fens in the next 50 years unless we rewet them. Their benefit to us and wildlife is huge. They are brimming with potential to help threatened wildlife and are a natural solution for storing carbon; so, it's a win-win all round.

"By taking this action for nature and through careful long-term management of the newly rewetted land by our staff and volunteers, we know it's just a matter of time until we see threatened wildlife species reappear here – and indeed the Red-listed lapwing that has already been seen on the peatland has proven that point.

B O G P L A N T S

I love this place so much, so many pretty plants and animals!!

cotton-grass, leatherleaf, ferns, tamarack trees and sphagnum moss as far as the eye can see!!

Chickadees, grackles, sparrows of all types, red-wing black birds, ducks, mourning doves even sandhill cranes and american bitterns!! and literally so many other birds.

bumblebees, chipmunks, squirrels and rabbits!! And ofc special mention to our wetland heroes.. BEAVERS!!

A) Learn more about bogs and plants/wildlife living there

B) Get involved in some way in trying to preserve said bogs, especially ones local to said person

Would you have any advice/information to offer them?

BOY DO I!!

Tl;dr - you can protect bogs using knowledge and methods acquired from other types of organising. For knowledge, there is probably an organisation of nerdy old people you can join. They will be delighted to have you. If a particular plant/species takes your interest, research it until you're satisfied. Don't be afraid of academic articles.

Well first off i'm delighted that you're taking an interest! Over 85% of wetlands have been destroyed since the industrial revolution. 35% of this destruction has occurred since 1970 and the rate is accelerating.

GENERAL ADVICE

If there's a topic u know interests you, research the hell out of it. It is your key. You'll discover other stuff that interests you as you go, and its all connected, so start by getting a real concrete knowledge of what interested you in the first place.

Look up "[your continent/country/county] peatland talk" on YouTube and see if u can find some lectures! Then, look into the organisation running those talks. Email them, they may have reports about your local bog, or be able to point you towards people who can tell you more. Mention "i'm particularly interested in dragonflies/carnivorous plants/sphagnum mosses/ground nesting birds, if you have information about that."

If u don't get a response, email again. Or message them on Facebook. Usually these organisations are like 3 people, and they might have lost the email password lol. This stuff is fractal, so even if you can't find resources about, say, the peatlands of Longford, you will be able to find resources about the Irish Midlands; failing that, Ireland; failing that, western Europe. If you can't find public talks/articles, you might have to dive into the scientific literature. Read the most recent research. Write down words you don't understand and look up the definitions. Look at the articles frequently cited by the articles you read. Take it slow. Discuss them with a friend if you can, and let them ask you questions - they will help you uncover gaps in your knowledge.

World Wetland Day is an international campaign about protecting wetlands. If you look into who is posting about it in your country, it's a good place to start.

Oh, and try get better at walking/existing in bogs. Hiking friends can probably help with this. Buy some DEET-free insect repellent. Good leather boots are waterproof if u maintain them well. Gaitors and waterproof overtrousers are your friends.

PROTECTING IT

PROTECTING the bog is a political issue.

General organising advice is useful no matter what you are organising around. Learn about direct action. Learn about ecological movements in your country, but also about national and international LGBT+ rights movements, tenants rights movements, minority ethnic rights movements etc. Get involved if you can. You'll learn what works in your circumstances, and what does not apply.

Learn your own limits too - what are you happy to give? What can you force yourself to give, at a push? What can't you give? Just because something is important doesn't mean you have to do it. No need to knock yourself out of shape to manage social media accounts if there's someone else who is better at it and happy to do it. Its good to develop your skills, but giving other people a chance to participate is also a skill.

The antifracking movent in Ireland is a great case study of how to protect your local ecosystems. They managed to get fracking completely banned in ROI, and ban the importing of fracked gas (though that fight is ongoing, I won't get into it). I duckduckgo'd "antifracking campaign Ireland" and found pages and pages of useful articles. Take your pick!

SPECIFIC ADVICE:

In Ireland: Community Wetland Forum is a charity whose whole deal is connecting communities to the bogs they live near. https://communitywetlandsforum.ie/resources/ They have resources about bogs AND about EU and national policy designed to protect bogs.

Ireland or the UK: the BSBI. They are full of knowledge. They run field trips a several times a year to various habitats. There's one in Longford on 19/07/25 on a cutover bog. This will be a great chance to learn about the species that live on even quite damaged bogs. https://bsbi.org/events/corlea-co-longford-2

I recommend reaching out to your local BSBI vice county recorder, who will likely be a strange and enthusiastic old plant nerd who will be delighted to bring you to your local bog. The BSBI also publishes many many many articles. Like all the time. They probably have an article about your local bogs, even if its from 1893. BSBI membership is like 35€ a year, if you can afford it. If you can't……message me. I am willing to share some PDFs.

In Scotland, the BSBI is currently (?) running a survey of plants on the summit of mountains, so now is a great time to reach out to them saying you're interested in learning about blanket bog plants! In Ireland, this is the first year of the upland plant survey. Likewise, this means blanket bog plants are a focus rn.

I like the IPCC (Irish Peatland Conservation Council) less well, because they are less ambitious about conservation than I'd like, and at times they pursue methods that I think are ineffective or counterproductive. However, they do have useful resources https://www.ipcc.ie/discover-and-learn/

And uhmmmmmmmm have fun! Its beautiful out there and we are so so so lucky to be in a position to enjoy and protect our local wetlands ♥ ask me follow up qs any time!

We’re restoring lost peatlands in Belgium.

Peatlands are unique wetland ecosystems that store water, prevent floods, and absorb carbon. In fact, even though they cover just 3% of the world’s land, peatlands store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined.

But then we drained them. Across Europe, wetlands were cut up and drained with long, straight drainage ditches to turn them into farmland. More than 80% of Europe’s wetlands disappeared.

In our 35th mission, we went to Belgium and teamed up with EcoTree to restore this important wetland ecosystem.

But this mission was different! For the first time ever, we brought members of the Planet Wild community into the field. Together with them, we launched a huge wetland restoration mission.

Make sure to follow EcoTree:

IG:   / ecotree_international  

Website: https://ecotree.green/en

Special thanks to Natuurpunt for providing us with additional footage.

#peatlands #wetlandrestoration #carbonsinks

Chapters

0:00 From farmland into wetland

0:49 How Europe used to look

2:06 Meet our partner

2:43 What is peat?

4:01 Why peatlands are disappearing

5:15 How we’re bringing back peat

6:05 Our community in the field

7:26 Our support