Great Big Nature Boost

For the Great Big Nature Boost project Severn Trent has joined forces with the RSPB, National Trust, Moors for the Future Partnership, the Rivers Trust, National Forest and regional Wildlife Trusts to reduce the use of chemicals and cut carbon emissions.

Moors for the Future Partnership are progressing planned works at Leash Fen and Big Moor in the Eastern Moors partnership near Sheffield, which includes:

• 2023/24 – up to 391 hectares of sphagnum planting
• 2024/25 – up to 340 hectares of sphagnum planting

The project will enhance blanket bog habitat conditions for biodiversity and climate change resilience by re-introducing sphagnum moss into degraded blanket bog habitats, placing them on a trajectory towards creating thriving upland bog communities

During the life of the project we will install fixed point photography points across the site in order to capture the change as a result of the moorland restoration .

We have a planned a series of schools visits and youth engagement sessions, taking place through partnership events across the catchment area which will begin in Spring 2024. These sessions will help create legacy materials to be used by all educational groups for free, well beyond the life of the project.

In development are new and creative ways to connect people with nature and blanket bogs with the use of every day sketching, via workshops and take-home materials about the ecosystem of peatland. These will be activities for the confident as well as the not so confident drawer, encouraging participants to draw only for themselves, not for show.  It’s all about having a go and having fun and appreciating the beauty of the moors.

Restoration work on The Roaches in Staffordshire is also being carried out as part of Defra's Nature for Climate initiative under Moors for the Future Partnership's Moor Climate Action project