5 June 2024
At St Raven’s Edge above the Kirkstone Pass, our Young Rangers worked with our partners at Fix the Fells on a path maintenance project helping to restore wetland habitats. Bunds were constructed, and the path was re-profiled to a single line to help walkers stick to the path rather than walking to the sides.
A bund is a bank of soil and sometimes stone scraped out of the immediate area. Where the material has been removed to make the bund, a shallow bowl is created. The bund and its bowl captures rainfall, making a small pond. This prevents rainfall run off damage and the stored water can then slowly seep back into the ground which gradually restores the peat.
Peat restoration is important because peat can store large amounts of carbon. Peatlands cover about three per cent of the Earth’s surface but store almost a third of the world’s carbon. In comparison the world’s forests store around half this amount. Pollution releases carbon into the atmosphere but our peatlands can capture and hold carbon - restoring peatlands is an important aspect to reducing our overall carbon emissions.
But there are even more benefits to making a bund - they restore wetland habitats for plants and animals including insects, cotton grass and sphagnum moss. Over time the peat in the bund becomes saturated and the captured rainfall has nowhere to drain. The pools become longer-lasting, enabling plants and insects to survive - they naturally populate the pond from surrounding bog wetland. All have specialist adaptations allowing them to grow in the wet and anaerobic conditions created by the peat. Sphagnum moss is a very important plant in wetland restoration because it can hold 20 times its weight in water acting like a big sponge, reducing the amount of water that runs down the hillsides and helping to reduce flooding.
'Before' photo of the path before work started
Photo of the bunds completed filled with water after some rainfall
Learn more about bunds, peat restoration and sphagnum moss below:
Our Young Rangers are a group of volunteers aged 14 to 18 who take part in practical conservation.
Once a month, on a Sunday, activities take place across the National Park which are led by experienced Rangers from several partner organisations. Young Rangers are able to learn new skills such as tree planting, footpath maintenance, dry-stone-walling and woodland coppicing.
Find out more about the Young Ranger programme
