BMC volunteers start 2026 with four Peak District conservation events

Mynediad Newyddion
25 Chw
2 min read

Our Get Stuck In volunteers are off to a flying start this year with 16,800 sphagnum moss plugs planted and 1,100 trees planted in the Peak District.

The BMC Access & Conservation Trust's volunteering events, Get Stuck In, kicked off on 22 January after a couple of events were cancelled due to frozen ground and bad weather.

Get Stuck In founder and BMC Access & Conservation Trust trustee, Steve Charles, says, "A total of 11 BMC volunteers joined National Trust Rangers from High Peak on on a new project transplanting sphagnum moss from well-established areas to adjacent areas with no moss on Kinder Scout. This was really successful to spread moss across the moor, planting 5,400 plugs in total. The weather was very wet and misty but everyone said they enjoyed themselves!

"Then an 29 January, 8 BMC volunteers joined Derbyshire Wildlife Trust volunteers above Abney in the Peak District to plant 1,100 trees on the Overdale Nature Reserve. These will benefit biodiversity, and help keep water on the moors, reduce flood risk downstream and decrease the risk of wildfire."

There are still a few spaces on our next Peak District conservation event, with the National Trust on Sunday 29 March, sign up here. View all our upcoming Get Stuck In path repair and landscape conservation events in Eryri and the Lake District here.

BMC Local Area Rep and Get Stuck In Volunteer Leader, Peter Judd, reports, "On Tuesday 10 February, 10 BMC volunteers joined Eastern Moors Partnership staff on a very foggy day to walk across a sodden Burbage Moor to plant 5,400 sphagnum moss plugs, a tremendous effort in the conditions! Participants remained very cheerful spurred on by the hot drinks and biscuits provided by the Eastern Moors Partnership, kindly carried for us to enjoy.

"On Sunday 22 February, 13 BMC members and two rangers planted sphagnum moss plugs on Burbage Moor, near the Ox Stones and not far from Burbage Edge in the Peak District for the Eastern Moors Partnership. These eager planters, spurred on by the rare treat of a mostly sunny day (and a ready supply of biscuits), managed to put a record (for Eastern Moors) 6,000 sphagnum plugs in the ground during the day, delighting the rangers directing our work!  We were told this sphagnum had been bought with funds from Moors for the Future Partnership and costs around 50p a plug, meaning that's £3,000s worth of sphagnum usefully planted that day.

"This moor experienced a devastating wildfire in 2023 in an area adjacent to our planting zone. As sphagnum moss (with its ability to absorb 20 times it's own weight in water) recolonises these moors (with luck each plug should double in size each year) then the peat will become progressively wetter and more fire-resistant in the long term."

A big thank you to all 42 Get Stuck In volunteers who have planted sphagnum or trees this winter. There are still a few spaces on our next Peak District conservation event, with the National Trust on Sunday 29 March, sign up here.

View all our upcoming Get Stuck In path repair and landscape conservation events in Eryri and the Lake District here.

Why do we care about degraded peat bogs?

Well, apart from them looking bloomin' ugly as we climb up the craggy sides of them or their muddier parts trying to steal our boots as we walk across them, peat bogs are a hugely important store of global carbon. Moors for the Future have very kindly pulled together a webpage of bog-tastic info, including the fact that English peatlands store the equivalent of 580 million tonnes of carbon (source: Natural England), and one hectare of restored blanket bog avoids 19 tonnes of carbon loss per year (source: DEFRA).

So with the UK hogging a whopping 13% of the world's boglands, it makes sense to restore them to their squelchy, wet glory. The more water the bog can hold, the more it prevents flooding, not to mention the thousands of plants, insets, amphibians, birds and animals it supports, like curlews, golden plovers, hen harriers and the elusive mountain hare.

The sphagnum moss our volunteers plant on our Get Stuck In days is essential to forming peat, which accumulates at about 1mm per year. This little, green plant holds up to 20 times its weight in water, so the more sphagnum we can pop into the ground, the soggier we can make the bog, making it much more resilient to wildfire and erosion.

Have we persuaded you yet? Sign up now!

Can't make the dates? Consider gifting us the amount you would have spent traveling to this event.

Help us protect the Eastern Moors from wildfire:

  • £10 funds a roll of 20 sphagnum moss plugs
  • £25 fully restores 1m2 of moorland
  • £50 stabilises bare peat with cut heather
  • £100 funds ten educational social media posts on wildfire prevention
  • £200 builds a 2m-wide dam to block and rewet a badly eroded gully
  • £2,000 hires a highly visual LED wildfire-prevention road sign
  • £10,000 buys a thermal wildfire-detection drone
  • £50,000 funds a Wildfire Ranger

Protect the Eastern Moors from Wildfire

Help us raise £50,000 this year to protect the Eastern Moors from Wildfire - 20.6 hectares (the size of 51 football pitches!) of this beautiful moorland, including the popular walking and climbing areas of Burbage, Froggatt and Curbar Edges, has been lost to wildfire in the last three years.

The May 2025 wildfire ravaging the beautiful Eastern Moors, a popular area for climbing and walking

Did you know that you can donate to the BMC Access & Conservation Trust entirely FREE simply by shopping online as you usually would, at any time of the year with Easyfundraising? It only takes two minutes to set up, here's how.

If you want to contribute to upland and mountain access and conservation causes like the above, then simply click here to donate to The BMC Access & Conservation Trust via The Climate Project or Mend Our Mountains campaigns at any time. One-off or regular donations of any amount are always most welcome.

Volunteer

Fancy fixing footpaths in the Lake District, placing stepping stones in Eryri or planting sphagnum in the Peak District? Sign up to one of our Get Stuck In events here. And if you can't volunteer, why not gift us the amount you would have spent in fuel or on a train fare getting to a volunteer event?

Leave a legacy

A wise person once said, the most noble thing you can do is to "plant trees under whose shade you will never sit" and, likewise, fund path repair projects on which you will never walk and moorland restoration projects which you will never see. If you'd like to make a lasting impact on the landscape long after you've left this world, please consider leaving us a legacy.

Mynediad Newyddion

BMC volunteers start 2026 with four Peak District conservation events

Our Get Stuck In volunteers are off to a flying start this year with 16,800 sphagnum moss plugs planted and 1,100 trees planted in the Peak District.

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Volunteers needed to protect Peak District from wildfire

Will you join us on Tuesday 10 or Sunday 22 February to plant sphagnum moss in the Eastern Moors to restore and protect this at-risk area from wildfire?

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