Flanders Moss NNR
There was a bit of filming going on at Flanders this week. A young film maker Cameron Mackay (http://www.changingplanet.co.uk) who is putting together a film called “Climate Change and Scotland’s future” came to Flanders to capture some of the issues to do with climate change and peatlands. Peat bogs are under threat from climate change which can exacerbate the problems that many peatlands have already, that of drying out. But peatlands can be future proofed to a certain extent by rewetting them so making them more resilient to changes that happen in the future.
At Flanders it worth remembering that a large chunk of the moss (110ha) was very close to being dug up for gardening peat. If SNH hadn’t stepped in and bought out the peat digging planning permissions for £1.8 million the a huge amount of peat would have been processed so putting lots of carbon into the atmosphere. Instead that carbon is now locked up under water and the restore bog vegetation is busy taking more carbon out of the atmosphere. This is where peatlands can be so valuable in counter acting the effects of carbon being put into the atmosphere.
Makes you look at them with different eyes!
Now covered is sphagnum.
The part of flanders that could have been dug for peat.
The green lines mark old dammed up ditches.
2 bogs, a swamp and some islands 