Bog Slog

I spent the weekend on the mainland doing some training on peatland restoration which is something I hope we can do here on the estate in the future. I attended a work party organised by the John Muir Trust where we were working in an area of peatland owned by the Assynt Foundation – another community land trust. The work involved using sections of corrugated plastic to make dams along stretches of old drainage ditches, I can imagine this is much to the horror of many a farmer or crofter but the land hadn’t been grazed for many years and the work has many environmental benefits. The blocking of the ditches causes flooding which raises the water table which leads to the restoration of  peatland vegetation such as Sphagnum moss and prevents areas of exposed peat from drying out. As well as restoring the area of blanket bog the work also helps to slow the release of Carbon Dioxide and Methane which is stored in the bog.

Luckily we had some very good weather and with a fantastic group of people the time seemed to fly by and the work that was supposed to take two days was in fact finished in one. The day was made even more interesting by the appearance of a couple of helicopters continually flying overhead – apparently it was Deer Commission Scotland doing a deer count in the same area.

On day two we went out to do some pathwork or Quinag which is one of the properties own by the John Muir Trust. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t so kind and we ended up clearing drains along the path in the pouring rain, at one point the drains were filling with water as fast as we were clearing them!. We then went back to check on the dams from the day before and thanks to the torrential rain we were able to see them working to full effect. Despite the weather (and the rough ferry crossing home!) I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot and I was lucky enough to be working with some great people who I hope will come and visit one of the work parties here one day.