Wool You Believe It? Fixing Peat with Fleeces

So… what’s the problem?

At first glance, the moorlands of North Yorkshire look just fine. You’ve got the purple heather, the soft tufts of cotton grass, and maybe the distant call of a curlew. It feels wild, healthy, untouched. But take a closer look, especially along the steep, crumbling edges of peat banks known as hags, and a different story starts to emerge. In place of vegetation, you’ll find bare, black peat, exposed and slowly breaking apart under the pressure of wind and rain.

This exposed peat causes problems in more ways than one. It releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere, contributing to climate change, while also washing sediment into rivers and reservoirs downstream, which affects water quality. During dry spells, it becomes especially dangerous, turning into a serious wildfire risk. Recent fires at Langdale and Fylingdales showed just how vulnerable these landscapes can be, with wetter, more vegetated areas faring much better than the dry and bare sections.

A 2024 survey at Lodge Moor and nearby High West in Nidderdale found nearly six hectares of bare peat and over 100 kilometres of eroding hag edges. That’s a vast area in need of repair, and it highlights just how urgent the challenge has become.

Why not just fix it the usual way?

There are already methods used to stabilise peat, but none are perfect. One common approach is spreading heather brash, cut vegetation scattered across the surface to protect the peat and encourage regrowth. Another is laying GeoJute matting, a biodegradable mesh that holds the ground together more securely. While both methods can be effective, they come with clear drawbacks. Heather brash is relatively cheap and natural, but it can easily wash away before plants have a chance to establish, especially on steep slopes. GeoJute, on the other hand, stays in place far better but comes at a steep cost of around £50,000 per hectare and has to be imported from South East Asia. For a region like Yorkshire, where thousands of hectares need restoring, scaling up these solutions quickly becomes a major financial and logistical challenge.

Three people on a foggy moor looking at grass growing through wool fleece laid over a peat hag

A simple idea: what if you used wool?

Back in August 2021, farmer Jack Graham came up with a simple but intriguing idea: what if sheep fleeces could be used to protect the peat? Raw wool is naturally fibrous and durable, meaning it can grip onto uneven surfaces and resist being blown or washed away. It also holds moisture well and, as it slowly decomposes, releases nutrients into the soil - exactly what degraded peat can lack - to help new vegetation establish.

Jack decided to test this out on some of the most eroded areas of Lodge Moor. He spread fleeces across the exposed peat, added some seed and some fertiliser, and then watched what happened. Over time, the results began to look promising. Vegetation started to establish in places where almost nothing had grown before, the wool stayed put even in tough weather conditions, and patches of once bare peat began to turn green again, despite continued grazing by sheep.

The challenge, however, was that these results were based purely on observation. There were no measurements, no control plots, and no formal data to confirm what was really driving the change. While encouraging, it wasn’t yet enough to influence wider restoration practices.

A steep slope of bare peat (a hag) set with sediment traps made from drainpipe

Enter SheepFix

To properly test the idea, Yorkshire Peat Partnership teamed up with Jack and Ruth Graham to launch Project SheepFix. This project is designed as a structured scientific study to determine whether wool can genuinely play a role in this specific area of peatland restoration, and if so, how it should be used.

The work is being carried out in two stages. The first stage focuses on establishing a detailed baseline, measuring current conditions before any wool is applied so that changes can be accurately tracked. The second stage will take place after the sheep are shorn, and will involve applying the wool treatments and monitoring how the landscape responds. This approach ensures that any results can be clearly linked to the intervention, rather than external factors.

It’s not as simple as it sounds

Although the idea is new in this context, wool has been trialled before in peatland restoration projects across the UK and Ireland, with mixed outcomes. In some cases, installations degraded quickly or failed to deliver meaningful ecological improvements. In others, unexpected issues arose, such as water being repelled or algal blooms forming. A major limitation of many of these earlier trials is that they lacked proper controls or baseline data, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions. SheepFix aims to address this by applying a much more rigorous scientific approach.

The tricky questions

One of the biggest uncertainties is how wool affects nutrient levels in peat. Healthy peat bogs are naturally low in nutrients, and the specialised mosses that sustain them, particularly Sphagnum, depend on these conditions. While wool releases nitrogen as it breaks down, too much of it could encourage the growth of coarse grasses rather than peat-forming vegetation. The challenge is to find a balance where nutrients are released slowly and at levels that support restoration without disrupting the ecosystem.

Another concern is the presence of pesticide residues in wool. Sheep are often treated with insecticides to control parasites, and traces of these chemicals can remain in the fleece for extended periods. Laboratory studies have shown that substances like cypermethrin and deltamethrin can leach out when the wool becomes wet. However, it is still unclear how this plays out in real peatland environments, whether these chemicals enter the soil, reach watercourses, or affect wildlife. SheepFix is addressing this gap by carrying out ongoing water quality monitoring throughout the project.

The cost question

From a financial perspective, wool presents a compelling option. It costs significantly less than GeoJute, roughly a quarter of the price, and avoids the need for long-distance transportation. If proven effective, it could make large-scale restoration far more feasible. The carbon footprint is more complex to assess, as sheep farming produces greenhouse gas emissions. However, since wool is a by-product of an existing agricultural system, how those emissions are attributed can significantly change the overall picture.

A narrow island of peatland vegetation surrounded by bare peat, photographed from the air

Why this matters

At its core, SheepFix is about more than just testing a new restoration method. It represents a shift in thinking about the relationship between farming and environmental recovery. Rather than treating them as competing interests, it explores how they might work together.

British wool has been declining in value for years, with some farmers paying more to have fleeces collected than they receive in return. If that same material can be used to restore peatlands, helping to store carbon, reduce wildfire risk, and manage water more effectively, it could transform both the economics of farming and the approach to conservation.

If successful, the implications extend well beyond Nidderdale. The method could be applied across Yorkshire and other upland regions, offering a practical, scalable solution to one of the UK’s most pressing environmental challenges.