Sphagnum with spores © Lizzie Shepherd
Peatland Restoration Practitioner
A LANTRA accredited course delivered by Yorkshire Peat Partnership, led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
The course is well aimed at those wishing to enter or are new to the field, it will be a helpful boost to get new team members of Northumberland Peat Partnership up and running swiftlyNorthumberland Peat Partnership
Peatland practitioner LANTRA students on Fleet Moss © Ellen Shield
Why Become a Peatland Restoration Practitioner?
Peatlands form an integral part of the UK’s landscape: first and foremost they are astonishing and vital habitats; they mitigate flooding downstream during storm events; and their preservative properties offer us a window into bygone millennia. They are valuable stores of carbon and an important part of tackling climate change.
Historical land management has limited their ability to carry out these services; however, large-scale restoration work can help bring back functionality in these environments. With circa 80% of peatlands degraded, there is a lot of work to do and currently not enough people with the diverse skillset required. The Peatland Restoration Practitioners course addresses this need and is aimed at building sector capacity for the future.
Peatland practitioner students receiving training in the Yorkshire Dales © Tess Levens
Who is this course aimed at?
It is open to leaners from across the UK to give you the skills and know-how to implement effective restoration best-practice and enables you to make a real impact on the ground. This course is for:
- Those looking to develop skills in project managing peatland restoration, from survey to construction
- Those looking to gain accreditation to support professionalisation of skills
- Those looking to gain understanding to enter the peatland restoration sector
Peatland practitioner LANTRA students on Swarth Moor © Ellen Shield
About the course
The course has been developed by established blanket bog restoration programme Yorkshire Peat Partnership (YPP), led by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and is accredited by LANTRA.
The course was originally created and designed by Dr Tim Thom, Dr Chris Miller, and Ollie Mackrill and is now delivered by current YPP staff.
This course is based on the extensive experience of YPP in all aspects of the large-scale peatland restoration. The Peatland Restoration Practitioners course will provide you with a skillset to deliver peatland restoration at scale, and LANTRA approved certification to demonstrate this. The course is focused on upland peatlands with opportunities to visit blanket bogs in various stages of restoration, and raised bogs.
Course logistics
- Course Set-up: 8 core modules covering restoration from surveying to implementing and monitoring restoration to exploring funding and working with stakeholders.
- Course Duration: 6 days in two 3-day phases with a 2 week break between sessions - Phase 1: Preparation, Phase 2: Delivery.
- Delivery Experience: 4 classroom-based learning days including the use of IT suites, and 2 days on sites.
- Learning and Assessment: Students complete a portfolio of written activities, write-ups from group work and other exercises throughout the course and will receive a LANTRA-accredited certificate upon successful completion.
- Costings: £ 1,000 per person + VAT (based on delivery in Yorkshire)
I thought the whole course was really interesting and it was great to get out to the field sites and see the restoration prescriptions out on site. It was also really great to meet other people working in the same field and hear other people’s experiences of what kind of sites they have and the challenges that they are experiencingNorthumberland Peat Partnership
Course level
- Prior experience using GIS (ideally QGIS) – specifically digitising features and editing attributes.
- Basic field identification skills for typical bog plants e.g., Sphagnum mosses, cotton sedges etc.
Phase 1: Preparation
- Peatland ecology - Learn about peatland formation, ecosystem services associated with peatlands, the historic and current threats faced by UK peatlands, and sustainable management of peatlands.
- Health and safety - Discuss hazard mitigation and risk assessment for working in upland environments. Understand the requirements of CDM Regulations (2015) when working with contractors on restoration projects.
- Surveying - Explore requirements for peatland survey design. Identify erosion features on aerial images using QGIS. Investigate different habitats and indicator species associated with blanket bogs.
- Practical restoration - Learn about upland restoration techniques and apply this knowledge using example sites.
Phase 2: Delivery
- Restoration plans - Interpret survey data in QGIS. Use data outputs to form an actionable restoration plan. Adapt restoration plans to common constraints and obstacles to restoration work.
- Delivering restoration - Understand the tendering process for restoration plan’s capital works. Learn about the necessary consents and utilities checks carried out ahead of capital works. Conduct quality control checks on capital works.
- Advocacy and evaluating success - Discuss common stakeholder concerns regarding peatland restoration. Evaluate the success of various restoration works through works monitoring and ecosystem and habitat monitoring.
- Peatland restoration funding - Discuss current funding streams for peatland restoration and explore the future of peatland restoration funding.
The team delivering the sessions utilised specialists from the wider YPP team, to support some of the session topics and they were insightful in sharing their knowledge on the subject areaDorset Peat Partnership