In the third round of the Carbon Innovation Fund, a partnership between Co-op and their charity, the Co-op Foundation, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust was selected amongst seven organisations across the UK to develop innovative ways to grow the food we need without damaging precious UK peatlands.
Peatlands are some of the most carbon-rich ecosystems on earth, storing twice as much carbon as the world’s forests, and play a role in cooling the planet, supporting biodiversity and reducing flood risk.
However, because peatland is also nutrient rich, it is sometimes drained to grow crops or broken up to put the peat into compost. This degradation of peatland causes greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss and destroys some of the UK’s most important ecosystems.
Farmers and landowners face huge challenges which are preventing peatland restoration at scale. The primary purpose of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s project is to investigate the possibility of maintaining or improving farm income and calorie output while delivering lowland peatland restoration and nature recovery.
Working in partnership with three farmers, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust will build on its expertise regarding the sales of ecosystem services (e.g. natural flood management, water filtration, and carbon storage) and exploring markets for alternative products to traditional beef, sheep and dairy production to investigate opportunities for peatland restoration alongside sustainable food production.
Ruth Pilbeam, Derwent Living Forest Programme Manager who is leading the project, explains:
“We understand the challenges that farmers and landowners face generating sustainable income whilst trying to support peatland restoration. That’s why our approach to transforming farm business models and collating evidence by monitoring conservation action and impacts on peatland, will enable nature’s recovery to exist alongside food security, and inform future peat restoration actions on farmland.
“Through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Derby, Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has developed tools for sensing and modelling landscape change under rewilding management for the purpose of understanding the opportunities for natural capital and associated ecosystem services.
“We have learnt how to successfully classify land use and characteristics using remote sensing rather than traditional ground surveying to record data on peatland condition. This will provide ongoing feedback on progress of management practices which farmers can use to report to investors who are paying for the ecosystem services delivered. This method will hugely reduce the costs of ongoing monitoring and will therefore reduce the maintenance costs investors need to pay to make peatland restoration a viable option for farm businesses.”
Nick Crofts, CEO of the Co-op Foundation said:
“I’m struck by the ingenuity and creativity of the projects we are funding. We need to co-operate to find solutions to the climate and nature crisis we face. Our partners’ brilliant ideas and innovation for harnessing the power of nature without harming it are vital to build a food system that restores and protects important habitats like peatland.”
Find out more about our projects in Derwent Living Forest or contact dlf@derbyshirewt.co.uk with specific enquiries about our work with farmers and the nature economy