Carbon Landscape

Peatlands when healthy, soak up (sequester) carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they form and lock it away underground, fighting climate change. The UK’s peatlands store over 3 billion tonnes of carbon – that’s roughly the same amount as all the forests in the UK, France and Germany combined. 

However, climate change is impacting these habitats. Drier summers are drying out the peat bogs which means they can no longer work as carbon stores, in fact once dried out and damaged they release carbon into the atmosphere. 

Rewetting and restoring peatlands can stop the release of greenhouse gases and help to store more carbon helping tackle the climate emergency. Peatlands also offer an important flood defence by slowing the flow of water down from the higher ground - reducing the risk of flooding further downstream. 

Many historic features from our pioneering industrial age can be seen dotted throughout the Flashes, Mosslands and Mersey Corridor. For instance, Stephenson’s floating railway between Liverpool and Manchester, a revolutionary infrastructure crossing Chat Moss, or the Bridgewater Canal through Wigan, Warrington and Salford - the first canal in Britain to be built without following an existing watercourse. There is the preserved pit winding gear and engine room at Astley Mining Museum and the impressive Spinners Mill in Leigh where cotton used to be spun. Look a bit deeper and you’ll find post-Ice Age trees dug up from peat extraction in Salford and diverse wetlands in Wigan and Warrington created from subsidence after the prolific mining and brick making industries. 

The pioneering achievements of the Industrial Revolution era, while increasing prosperity and setting us on the path towards modern society, had an adverse impact on the natural roadways of our wildlife. Formerly innovative transport systems now provide barriers to the wild animals that need to move through our environment. Peat and clay extraction, drainage to convert bog into farmland, and war time factories have damaged and reduced fragile wildlife habitats. Restoring these habitats will not only support nature but retain the local natural heritage along with the man-made heritage. 

Man-made developments have contributed to habitat fragmentation resulting in smaller, disconnected pockets of nature. Paired with the pressures of climate change, is resulting in the decline of UK nature. Landscape scale conservation tackles this fragmentation through the creation of better, bigger and more connected wildlife sites, ultimately creating a fully connected nature recovery network, such as those mapped out in the Local Nature Recovery Strategies covering our region. Wildlife benefits directly by reconnecting sites together through landscape corridors like rivers and streams, hedgerows or by creating stepping stone habitats or pond creation.  

A wildlife corridor is an area of habitat connecting wildlife populations. Just like us, wildlife needs corridors to move between the areas they live and inhabit to feed, breed and disperse. 

A stepping-stone site is often important for birds and insects. Isolated ponds can also be an important habitat for great crested newts.

Learn more about the foundations of landscape scale conservation 

The Carbon Landscape project achieved a range of successes. Case studies outlining the project’s success, and its achievements and legacy can be found in the below reports. 

Achievements and legacy of the Carbon Landscape project

Carbon Landscape Partnership case studies report

Carbon Landscape mid-term review report