Peatland restoration

Peatlands are important in the fight against climate change –remaining peatlands in the UK cover just 12% of land but store an incredible 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon.

Yet less than 2% of the original wetland that made up the Fens in Eastern England now remain, and 80% of our total peatlands have been lost or damaged.

On the Suffolk/Norfolk border, an RSPB nature reserve is helping to reverse this trend by restoring a dried-out peatland in the Fens back to health, returning it to a paradise for threatened wildlife.



Protecting UK birds

At its Lakenheath Fen site, the RSPB is re-wetting peatland that had previously been drained, restoring this land by raising water levels and creating ideal conditions to help birds that once made their homes here.

These include lapwing, a red-listed species (UK breeding population down 63% 1967-2023); redshank, an amber-listed species (UK breeding population down 45% 1995-2023) and
oystercatcher, an amber-listed species (UK breeding population down 21% 1995- 2023).

UK populations of these species are rapidly declining due to a long list of factors, which include loss of habitat to breed and feed.

Since work started to re-wet this land, wildlife has already started to repopulate the once-barren area.

Species including lapwing, marsh harrier, cattle egret and great egret, grey heron and little egret have all been spotted on site.

The restored land will also help water voles, one of the fastest-declining mammal species in Britain, with population numbers down by 97% since the 1970s.

Birth of the Fens

RSPB Lakenheath Fen sits within the geographical area known as the Fens.

A dramatic, almost prehistoric-looking landscape in places, the Fens came into being 10,000 years ago as sea levels rose and deposited clay and silt across low-lying parts of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire.

Over time, the deposited sediment slowed the movement of water from the area and land became flooded and boggy. This, coupled with the rising sea level, establishing what we now call the Fens.

This wetting of the land created rich, peaty soil – an incredibly special and delicate ecosystem that is important for wildlife and the planet.


Farming & the Fens

Much of the peatlands that make up the Fens were drained over the last 400 years to create farmland, with less than 2% of the original 400,000 hectares of wetland remaining.

Peatlands store huge quantities of carbon, but draining them for agriculture releases large amounts of this carbon in the form of carbon dioxide, a gas responsible for much of the climate crisis we face. Re-wetting these artificially drained peat soils stops this release of carbon dioxide, benefiting the climate and us.