Freshwater rewilding

3.2 How do we rewild peatland?

Rewetting

Rewetting peatlands is a critical measure for restoring these vital ecosystems and mitigating the scale and impact of climate change.

Peatland rewetting involves raising the water table to restore the natural, waterlogged conditions of peatlands. This can be achieved by blocking drainage ditches and constructing ‘leaky’ dams with natural materials that are already present in the landscape like peat, other soils or vegetation. It is also important to ‘re-profile’ the peat. This means making the sides of drainage channels less steep to slow the flow of water over them, which reduces the rate of erosion.

These actions reduce the rate of water flow across the peatland area, thereby making the peat wetter and kick-starting the recovery process. The removal of forest plantations can also help to restore the water balance of peatlands as water is no longer taken up by their root systems. Removing plantations does not have to be done mechanically. If the peat is re-wetted the trees in permanent standing water will eventually die off naturally.

Reintroducing wildlife

Peatlands are important for a huge array of plant and animal species that are specially adapted for wet conditions. When peatlands are drained, populations of these species are negatively impacted and can even disappear.

When degraded peatlands are restored to wetlands again some of these species can return naturally if source populations are still located nearby, or seed banks are still available in the soil.

For other species the barriers to returning are often too great – this is particularly the case for vegetation and some invertebrates such as sphagnum and large marsh grasshoppers. In this case, reintroductions or translocations are needed to help them become re-established.

If you wish to know more about this particular topic once you have completed this module we recommend you watch the IUCN UK Peatland Programme video on reintroductions and translocations, in the context of peatland. You can find it in the further reading section.