In celebration of World Peatlands Day 2025, our Irish Action Site partners organised three events with school children, local citizens and farmers in the week of the 2nd June 2025!
World Peatlands Day is a global event celebrated annually to raise awareness about the importance of peatlands and their responsible management.
The Cuilcagh-Anierin Uplands Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is a blanket bog site covering 9,735 hectares. Erosion, drainage and invasive conifer encroachment are just some of the threats faced by this Action Site. In Ireland, peatlands have always been seen as a fuel resource or wasteland, but the reality is that our bogs help us to retain water in our hills and also to mitigate and battle climate change. Understanding the value of peatlands is a critical part of raising awareness and explaining why we are protecting and restoring them.
To honour World Peatlands Day, the Irish Action Site held a school field visit, where 25 kids from Cavan had the opportunity to explore a restored bog. During the field visit, they explored the key bog vegetation, how we can restore a bog and why bogs are important along with some activities such as peat coring and peat depth.
The school programme led by the Irish Action Site is part of an ongoing training and engagement strategy, which allows students to see this habitat from another point of view, exploring its importance for biodiversity, water and climate change first-hand in the field.
In addition to the school visit, the action site organised a celebratory community event to honour World Peatlands Day, where the team shared the importance of peatlands and how WaterLANDS is restoring blanket bogs across Cavan and Leitrim Counties with the public.
The Irish Action Site team finished their World Peatlands Day activities by organising a training with local farmers. The farmers had the opportunity to identify key issues on their lands using the Action Site's "blanket bog restoration toolkit". The team demonstrated how farmers can implement restoration measures for complex erosion issues.
Restoration actions are being driven through a results-based agri-environment payment scheme (RBPS) coordinated by LIFE IP Wild Atlantic Nature, whereby farmers receive funding in exchange for improving habitat quality and biodiversity.
The RBPS programme is delivered through the Common Agricultural Policy by locally based ACRES CP teams. WaterLANDS is assisting farmers undertake restoration measures to improve their RBPS payments. The focus is on integrated land use for the delivery of enhanced ecosystem services including water quality, climate regulation and biodiversity.