“We’ve had it under our noses for centuries”

Finally Yorkshire’s peat bogs are getting the love they deserve.

These incredible landscapes support a huge variety of birds, mosses and amphibians. They help prevent flooding, and store vast amounts of carbon that could otherwise end up in the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.

But until recently their real value was not well understood. In the period following the Second World War they were even drained, to try to make them more suitable for farming.

Now the peatlands are being restored. Local people are being invited to “give peat a chance” and get to know their local bog, in a project that combines art and citizen science.

Volunteers have been putting on their boots to head out and survey Yorkshire’s restored peatlands, and the plants and animals that call them home. They’ve helped scientists to collect data on nature, and they’ve taken part in workshops using poetry, drawing and sound, to explore their responses to the place.

Juliet Klottrup documented this two-year project, run by Yorkshire Peat Partnership, in this series of photos.

Bernie Davies, rewilding and regenerative land manager of Denton Park Estate, is seen here with his son Win and their dog Nell. They use these poles to measure the depth of the bogs. Meanwhile volunteers have used drawing to record the plants found on the moorland, including Erica tetralix (cross-leaved heath).

When the peatlands were drained, the land dried out, killing plant life and causing erosion. Yorkshire Peat Partnership has now blocked almost 3,000km of drainage channels to keep water on the land.

“I think the moorland here has been overlooked,” said Nick Bailey, director, Denton Reserve. “We’ve had it under our noses for centuries and it’s felt like a kind of wasteland. But then you start getting under the surface of it and looking at how it can be restored, how it can flourish, and how exciting it can be. And all of a sudden, people want to be involved in that.”

“I want to help people to engage and see what’s here,” said visual artist Naseem Darbey. “I found that quite tricky when I first came onto the moor. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I had to learn it from scratch.”

Local people have helped to track the return wildlife as the landscape has been restored. On the left, a volunteer with a captured moth, and on the right, a common frog.

“Sedges have edges, rushes are round”, is one of the sayings that volunteers use to help them identify plant species.

A young volunteer draws cross-leaved heath flowers. Photographer Juliet Klottrup said: “I strive to capture not just the transformation of the landscape but also the human connection to it – through the perspectives of those who know the peatlands well and those encountering them for the first time.”

Volunteers on the way out to survey vegetation. Studying peat can reveal evidence of changes in climate and land use going back thousands of years. When peat bogs are degraded, these stories are washed away.

Sarah Smout (left) is a musician and sound artist. “This is a period where peatlands are being restored, and they have a new story to tell,” she said. Lauren Kelly is a visual artist from Bradford, who took part in Bog Day.

Keith looks out for birds as part of a survey on the peatlands. Species including lapwings, short-eared owls and skylarks can be seen here.