The WaterLANDS UK Action site, through iCASP and water@leeds, at University of Leeds, is hosting a “Bog Film Fest” in July 2025 to raise awareness about peatlands, particularly the Great North Bog. The film fest aims to generate interest in the partners' work to conserve and restore peatlands and links in with a broader community engagement strategy of the UK action site. Joshua Cohen, the WaterLANDS UK Stakeholder & Community Engagement Lead, provides insights into the purpose and importance of community engagement work.
Community engagement is imperative to ensure that all those affected by and who affect peatlands are informed about and interested in these vital ecosystems, and are part of restoration or conservation efforts.
The UK action site is supporting the Great North Bog, a coalition made up of the Northumberland Peat Partnership, Yorkshire Peat Partnership, Cumbria Peat Partnership, Lancashire Peat Partnership, North Pennines National Landscape, and Moors for the Future Partnership. It is these partnerships that are carrying out the conservation and restoration work across the region and who have built up a lot of experience in navigating the country’s realities. For them, community engagement is vital for their work.
Feeding into this work, the Film Fest targets a broad public and specifically tries to reach people who may not typically be interested in environmental conservation and restoration. This is why “film” was chosen as a core medium, which is accessible and universal in order to inform and stimulate discussion about peatlands. Three screenings are planned as part of the film fest across different locations, detailed below:
- Thursday 10 July, 7-9pm: Cumbria Wildlife Trust at Gosling Sike, CA3 0LD. Films will feature bogs in Cumbria – how Cumbria Wildlife Trust restored them and why they are special. Event includes film introductions and a Q&A session. Register.
- Thursday 15 July, 6.30-10pm: Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds, LS6 1BL. Four short films followed by live music and discussion with directors and artists. Register.
- Saturday 19 July, 10am-3.30pm: Great North Bog Day, Moss Peteral Farm, Brampton CA8 7HY Featuring films, creative workshops, guided walks, local food and the unveiling of a new sculpture - all in the heart of a living upland bog. Register.
The film fest is only a small part of a larger community engagement strategy. As the UK Engagement Lead and anthropologist by training, Joshua Cohen fulfils a multifaceted supporting role. He brings in social scientific approaches to help understand the plurality of values connected to peatlands and generate insights into what could be done to improve engagement processes going forward.
An important part of his work is related to balancing different landowner interests. The UK is a country in which 1% of the population owns half of the land, and where differences in power, wealth and influence have deep roots. Open dialogue and relationships built carefully over time are central, as is trying to understand where differing values derive from and why these might differ. At the same time, finding commonalities – such as a concern for previous and future generations, and connection to land - can help to foster productive dialogue and collaborative action.
He also recently co-authored a white paper on “the requirements for up-scaled peatland restoration of England’s uplands”, which highlights the need to make community engagement a key pillar of peatland restoration that is integral to the restoration process. According to Joshua, especially local or regional-scale partnerships, such as the Great North Bog, play a critical role in achieving this. Other aspects playing a key role include:
- Recognising that all aspects of the restoration process involve people and relationships and form the ‘substance’ of community engagement.
- Providing long-term support for relevant personnel and resource capacity, including the need for culture change within organisations, so all staff see themselves as integral to community engagement.
- Recognising that the values that people hold for nature are plural and that frameworks other than monetary valuation and cost-benefit analysis can support decision-making.
- Acknowledging that community engagement brings potential risks around stakeholder and community fatigue, and being mindful of the power dynamics associated with peatlands and land management.
- Developing new strategies to generate emotional connections between the general public and peatlands. For the UK action site, this involves organising events like deep listening peatland walks, storytelling afternoons, and BogFilmFest, but also working closely with artists in residence Fiona MacDonald (Feral Practice) and Laura Harrington.
Find out more about the UK Action Site here and download the White Paper here.
Text by Joshua Cohen, WaterLANDS UK Stakeholder & Community Engagement Lead
