Bog mecca

Flanders Moss NNR

 

On Wednesday peaty people from all over the UK came to Flanders to find out what we have been doing to restore the bog.  They were all part of the IUCN conference – Peatland Connections – Building Prosperity and it was a measure of how Flanders is viewed as it was the most popular destination for site visits and in the end nearly 80 people were shown around the site. Attendees were people who were working on peatlands from all over the UK and they got a chance to see a peat working himac installing deep trench bunding, the recovering ex-conifer plantation which is now being taken over by sphagnum and the lagg fen area where we are holding water onto the edge of the bog.

I don’t get out much these days so an event like this reminds me what a special place Flanders is and how the restoration work is helping the bog to recover. But there was just as much interest from the delegates about the way that we have been reconnecting  the bog to the people. From a place that no-one visited before 2006, we have transformed people’s awareness and knowledge of Flanders. Of course Flanders is not perfect (not quite) and feedback was handy, with comments about how more monitoring would be good to capture data on the actual improvement of the site and also how more staff resources would enable this, were useful to hear.

And the event was good encouragement for me to get out more and go and see other peoples sites. There is an awful lot to learn!