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Non UU-Owned CatchmentsWoodhead - MFF

2Moors for the Future

Moors for the Future; Skilled and Experienced Delivery 600 hectares

1200 tonnes of lime and fertiliser

120 tonnes prilled grass seed

20 hectares geo-jute

1950 tonnes heather brash

5km to nearest road

Much winter work!

3Moors for the Future

Contributing Partners

• Peak District National Park Authority*• Natural England• Environment Agency• National Trust• United Utilities• Yorkshire Water• Severn Trent Water• Derbyshire County Council• RSPB• Heritage Lottery Fund• EU Commission• Defra• English Heritage

4Black Hill Summit 2003

5Black Hill Summit July 2008 – 6 years of successful project delivery

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MoorLIFE

An opportunity to finish the job started in 2002

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MoorLIFEhttp://ec.europa.eu/environment/life/publications/lifepublications/compilations/documents/natcompilation08.pdf

Inside PDNP 497 Ha approximately £4.5 million

Outside PDNP 358 Ha approximately £1.2 million

United Utilities £504k

Yorkshire Water £415k

Natural England £208k

National Trust £209k

Environment Agency £88k

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Conservation Plan Project

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Non – owned catchment: Woodhead

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MoorLIFE Woodhead Estate East of Bleaklow Head, possibly the most degraded

upland peat in Europe and it is in a National Park

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Woodhead project

• Poor raw water quality

• 43,000cu Metres of sediment per year

• flood risk due to rapid surface drainage

• failing to meet SSSI target condition

• major carbon source

• poor agricultural productivity

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Non – owned catchment: Woodhead

• Gully Blocking : can be over 3m deep, 139 km of gullies will be blocked.

• Brash Spreading: The area of bare peat is estimated to be 50 hectares. Includes cutting, delivery and spreading of heather brash onto the bare peat areas.

• Bare peat re-vegetation: spreading chopped up heather brash, on steeper slopes a geo textile material is required. Then a nurse grass seed is sown with successive additions of lime and fertilizer for four out of the first five years

• Plug Plants: These are small plants, mainly Eriophorum angustifolium, Eriophorum vaginatum and Empetrum nigra.

• Hydro-seeding: Hydro-seeding seeds of Calluna vulgaris, Erica tetralix, Erica cinerea and Vaccinium myrtillus by helicopter of cleaned seed.

• Sphagnum: helicopter application, in suspension, of embryonic plants of 5 Sphagnum species and Polytrichum commune.

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Sphagnum propagation

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….and the MoorLIFE project will significantly improve all these issues