Image of an Alaskan bog with water and red moss in the foreground and trees in the background.

Let’s make 2026 the year of the bog. The world’s most unique and interesting plants, clean water, cooler climate. Bogs deserve our thanks, care, and deep respect. Please join me and love a bog today.

Today a chap from NFU spouted guff on R4 about complex rivers being dire for wildlife.

Yet here a willow is creating a natural, oxygenated riffle.

1) Scouring rivers only benefits those who farm flood plains.

2) How do they think wildlife coped before we dredged rivers?

Answer: marvellously.

Why winter sheep grazing on Dartmoor’s commons must end In Dartmoor Nature Alliance’s 2025 “Call to Action” the campaign group stated clearly that all sheep grazing should be removed in winter from the Dartmoor commons, and the land be allowed to rest. Wit...

Why winter sheep grazing on Dartmoor’s commons must end.

Bold decisions are needed to ensure new Countryside Stewardship Higher Tier and Landscape Recovery Schemes deliver for nature and protected sites on Dartmoor's precious commons.

www.dartmoornature.org.uk/post/why-win...

Today is the 23rd birthday of Moors for the Future Partnership. The Partnership started as a single project in 2003, restoring the area around Black Hill in the South Pennines, and has since worked on over 250 sq km of blanket bog, bringing life back to this degraded but precious landscape.

The sphagnum mosses are loving all of this rain 💕 otherworldly treasures within the bog pools @sphagnums.bsky.social @scohaboybog.bsky.social @claireissimo.bsky.social @tocharstories.bsky.social @communitywetlands.bsky.social

Pool of standing water on North Pennines peatland with patches of green sphagnum

North Pennines peatland with large pool of water and peat bunds in gully. Bright blue sky with minimal cloud.

North Pennines peatland with large pools of standing water. Fells in the background. Cloudy sky.

🔵Today is #WorldWetlandsDay
Peatlands are wetland ecosystems and we have them across the uplands of the North Pennines National Landscape. #northpenninespeatlands #celebratingwetlands #peatlands #wetlands #peatlandsmatter

The optimist vs pessimist divide in #climate debates isn’t usually about the data.

It’s about how the same graphs are read, what people emphasise, what they discount, and how they interpret pace and stakes.

Here’s what I mean 🧵👇

High Court throws out Moorland Association’s legal challenge against new burning regulations Some good news! This morning, the Moorland Association’s legal challenge against Defra’s new burning regulations (which restrict burning on deep peat) has been thrown out by the High Co…

Good news!

High Court throws out Moorland Association's legal challenge against new burning regulations in England ⚖️🌍

New blog ⬇️

raptorpersecutionuk.org/2026/01/28/h...

A lot of what is said about Nature holding up development is simply not true. It’s wrong. False. At best misleading. If you’ve heard that newts are a cause of our national housing shortage, read this from @naturalengland.bsky.social

naturalengland.blog.gov.uk/2026/01/14/b...

We're delighted to share some big news!

Introducing our most ambitious peatland conservation programme to date, Moor Resilience 2030: www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk/the-latest

#PeakDistrict #SouthPennines #Peatlands #Moorlands #BlanketBog #Biodiversity #Carbon #Water #Climate

A vibrant display of the Northern Lights in the night sky, featuring shades of green and red, with silhouettes of trees in the foreground.

Our Dark Skies Festival with the @yorkshiredales.org.uk is just one month away and it’s shaping up to be an unforgettable celebration of the night sky 🌌

Take a look at the full programme: https://www.darkskiesnationalparks.org.uk/

📸 Chris Whiles

#DarkSkiesFestival2026

Pleased to see this new paper with Dylan Young published: "Understanding the Carbon Balance of Peatlands: A Comment on Heinemeyer et al. (2025)". See: www.mires-and-peat.net/article/1547...

farmers / land managers - reclaim your ponds as places of water within the landscape

#land #conservation #management

Snow covered black spruce trees in a boggy area of interior Alaska.

Happy new year from the bogland gnomes who hope you achieve your goals this year. May that include wetland protection and conservation around the world. If you care about stable food, clean water, your climate, or beautiful inspiring places, then you care about wetlands.

Butterwort and sundews

A close up photo of a sundew leaf with a small insect trapped on it

A green sundew growing among red sphagnum moss

A sundew growing from a pool of water

Love bogs! (More often called muskegs here in SE Alaska) Sphagnum moss and carnivorous plants are some of my favorite things

You're right, they do also state that. I was interested in their opening statement though "no grounds for the claim that controlled burning 'causes biodiversity loss.'" - it's often the opening statement that people read as the take-away message. And that's a message I didn't see evidenced

Hi @andreasheinem.bsky.social, the @moorlandassoc.bsky.social state about your recent paper "An extensive review finds no grounds for the claim that controlled burning 'causes biodiversity loss.'"

My reading of point 10 in your review is that the evidence is mixed. Would you care to comment?

Your blog still repeatedly calls it a major scientific review despite the author Dr Heinemeyer saying that "It certainly is not a 'major review'..." I guess at some point you'll amend this?

Bringing back the bog: peatland restoration in the Humberhead Levels | Yorkshire Wildlife Trust A major project run by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Natural England, and Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust is utilising methods like peat bunds and sphagnum planting to restore over 800 hectares of the…

Restoring Yorkshire’s peatlands! 🌱

Over 800ha of bog at #HumberheadLevels is being revived to lock carbon, boost biodiversity & reduce floods.

Learn more 👉 www.ywt.org.uk/blog/yorkshire-wildlife-trust/bringing-back-bog-peatland-restoration-humberhead-levels

#PeatlandRestoration

The #YorkshireDales National Park really is limestone country ❄️

Limestone is a hard sedimentary rock formed when remains of sea creatures dropped onto the sea floor. It contains fossils like corals and shells.

📌 Ribblehead
📸 Kev Lockwood Photography

#ChristmasCalendar

Bogs not bags... | Yorkshire Peat Partnership In 2011, the UK Government set a voluntary target for the use of peat in amateur horticulture to be phased out by 2020. In 2021, Defra launched a consultation on whether the use of peat in horticultur...

ICYMI, we still don't have legislation to ban the use of peat in bagged compost (or horticulture more widely) in the UK. Please sign the petition and let's keep peat in the bog and not a bag: www.yppartnership.org.uk/blog/lyndon-...

Concentric ring patterns formed (we think) by a lichen, at Shining Cliff Wood, Alderwasley, Derbyshire, image Derbyshire HER

Concentric ring patterns formed (we think) by a lichen, at Shining Cliff Wood, Alderwasley, Derbyshire, image Derbyshire HER

Concentric ring patterns formed (we think) by a lichen, at Shining Cliff Wood, Alderwasley, Derbyshire, image Derbyshire HER

I'm lichen it ...

I'm lichen it a lot!

These petroglyphs from Shining Cliff Woods are rather beautiful but sadly we don't think they're archaeology

'Concentric boulder lichen' (porpidia/actomelia) might be the answer, but none of the online pix are this spectacular - any lichenologists out there?

Fantastic job: Specialist Advisor in Peatland Habitat Monitoring.
Join the dynamic Wales peatland team to lead ecological survey & monitoring elements.
£41K-£44K+ p/a. Closing 14/12/2025. Go for it!
swyddi.cyfoethnaturiol.cymru/VacancyInfor...
@natreswales.bsky.social #GreenJobs #environment #Wales

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like #Christmoss! Have you been good peatland practitioners and restored a lot of #Peatland this year? #SphagnumMonday #GreatNorthBog #Christmas

Bogs not bags... | Yorkshire Peat Partnership In 2011, the UK Government set a voluntary target for the use of peat in amateur horticulture to be phased out by 2020. In 2021, Defra launched a consultation on whether the use of peat in horticultur...

@yorkshirepeat.bsky.social is highlighting the lack of Government action on the horticultural peat ban despite overwhelming support.

Please sign the @peatfree.bsky.social petition, write to your MP & go #PeatFree in your own garden.

www.yppartnership.org.uk/blog/lyndon-marquis/bogs-not-bags

Misty landscape featuring a large, leafless ash tree in the foreground with smaller trees in the background, all shrouded in a soft fog.

National Tree Week. Ash trees keep woodlands bright with their open, late-leafing canopy. And despite Ash Dieback Disease, many are showing resilience, pushing new growth and adapting.

Although our work is focussed on restoring natural #peatland habitats, it's also great to remember that there is a wealth of human history in these hills😊

It's important to retain these cultural connections to the landscape, while also trying to restore natural habitats for future generations 🌿

Dartmoor is dying - it's time to bring it back to life.

Today the Dartmoor Nature Alliance publish a new call to action to restore Dartmoor's habitats: rewet peat bogs, revive heaths by reducing grazing, double temperate rainforest area

Read it & join here:
www.dartmoornature.org.uk/call-to-action

Moor House – an outdoor laboratory - NERR156 Moor House was among the first National Nature Reserves designated in England in 1952. Over the past 70 years it has hosted an extraordinary amount of research work, resulting in over 1,000 publicatio...

That's timely - I happened to see this new NE report on Moor House yesterday: publications.naturalengland.org.uk/publication/... It says there's been over 1000 publications based on the site

Some lichen stuck to the branch of a tree. This will also happen to your face, if you stand on the top bit of Dartmoor long enough.

Look at this fucking amazing lichen on a much smaller tree branch. It's like tinsel for people who like acid folk.

The furry lichen on this footpath sign has obscured the lettering on it which tells people where they are going. Oh well. Walks are way better when you get lost anyway.

It's absolutely normal, well-adjusted behaviour to come back from walks with a lichen-coated stick, and I will not hear otherwise.

Isn't lichen brilliant?