Marches Mosses BogLIFE project nears ‘completion’ at Fenn’s, Whixall, Bettisfield, Wem and Cadney Mosses SSSI/NNR, Mags Cousins How time flies - it was Autumn 2016 when I wrote an article for the Shropshire Botanical Society newsletter (Cousins, 2016) on the successful £4.9 million bid to the EU LIFE fund for the ongoing restoration of the degraded bog at Fenn’s National Nature Reserve (NNR). The injection of this money has enabled a huge amount of work to be done and it is now time for an update as the project is nearing ‘completion’. Of course, the restoration work that started 30 years ago, will continue for many decades more but the BogLIFE project was set to run for five years and ends in 2022.
spraying; • Improving water quality by diverting the poorquality water of Bronnington Manor Drain to the edge of the bog; (see Fig. 9) • Removal of 150,000 tyres from Furber’s scrapyard and rehabilitation to semi-natural habitat; • Construction of a viewing tower (see Fig. 10).
Fantastic progress has been made by the hardworking NNR team, including the following:
The cell bunding technique has proven effective at other peatland restoration sites in reducing water loss through degraded peat, and certainly seems to have been successful at Fenn’s. Fig. 1 shows all the areas where cell bunding has taken place with the location of the actual bunds digitised by volunteers.
Some of the works are described and illustrated in more detail below. Cell bunding
• 50ha of coniferous and 40ha of broadleaved trees removed; • 290ha cell bunded and 58ha contour bunded to raise water levels; • Experimental remedial works on 3ha of improved areas of lagg including turf stripping and Sphagnum plug planting and Sphagnum gel
The cell bunding technique utilises an excavator to lift the surface layer and pack it into bunds in a honeycomb-like arrangement (Fig. 2). This disrupts the peat “pipes”, or holes in the shrunken oxidised layer which, unseen below the surface, shed water rapidly from degraded peat sites. Fig. 3 shows how well the cell bunding held surface water on the felled conifer plantation. The longterm hydrological monitoring data for the last 30 years of restoration at Fenn’s was analysed by a hydrologist (Leader, 2020) and showed clearly that restoration works had been successful in raising water levels, with a significant jump in relation to cell bunding in all areas, which was not attributable to rainfall effects. Eriophorum vaginatum Hare’stail Cottongrass was certainly flowering profusely at Wem Moss this year, see Figs. 4 and 5. The cell bunding makes traversing the sites even more complicated than before, with routes having to follow the bunds, but staff and volunteers are well accustomed to this. Revegetation is rapid with Calluna vulgaris Common Heather, Vaccinium myrtillus Bilberry and Molinia caerulea Purple Moor-grass on the bunds and Sphagnum cuspidatum Feathery Bog-moss in the wet hollows; not dissimilar to the old hand-cut peat cuttings.
Fig. 1 Location of major bunding areas
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