This Tiny Plant Could Save Britain.

Britain is facing some extraordinary environmental challenges. One season we're dealing with devastating floods and the next we're facing prolonged droughts and record-breaking heat. And all the while our wildlife continues to disappear. I'll be honest, sometimes it all feels a little overwhelming. But here's the thing, while it's important that we recognise the scale of these problems, I think it's equally important that we recognise the solutions. Because across Britain some extraordinary work is being done to bring back nature and what's happening here is a brilliant example of that and it all starts with something rather unexpected all right so today today's going to be a fun one we're going to be joined by volunteers and we're going to be planting and learning all about a tiny but fascinating plant that i believe i believe it could save Britain a bold claim i know but stick with us on this one and i was actually invited out here by Giffgaff who Leaf Curious has partnered with for this video as they funded the restoration which we'll be seeing out here today for this one we're up on the eastern moors in the Peak District it's public land managed by the National Trust and the RSPB working with Moors for the Future and funders like Giffgaff it's right on Sheffield's doorstep and millions of people access these landscapes but even more are impacted by what happens here you were just saying this is one of the most visited well it is the most visited RSPB reserve RSPB reserve in the country and we're half a million people um visiting all year round 24 24 7. so for many people this is their landscape yeah um it's their resource and they need to be out here because of the benefits they get for connection for nature but what has happened out here well although these moors might look wild and natural they've actually been shaped by humans for centuries historically much of this landscape was managed through extensive draining and controlled burns to graze animals and shoot grouse and over time that has influenced the vegetation and the way that these ecosystems function and the result here is a very dry landscape dominated by heather what we've got is a lot of heather here um the heather is here heather as a plant doesn't like to get its feet wet it's quite dry it favors the dry areas this is Calluna vulgaris it's a ling heather we had a fire on here in 2023 yeah um came down from the Oxstones burned through here at about half past nine at night what you can see here we're on the line on the edge of the fire on this court on the left hand side it's quite patchy yeah bits of bilberry cotton grass you see the the cutting bits and what cutting does is it allows more species to come through now when you burn it tends to favor the Calluna heather so on the right hand side you can see the dominance of heather and how strongly the heather has come back but beneath all this vegetation is something incredibly important peat now peat is quite extraordinary because unlike most soils it's made up largely of dead plant material that has accumulated over thousands of years you see in a healthy peatland the ground is so wet that when plants die they don't fully decompose instead there remains gradually build up forming layer upon layer of this carbon rich soil. And because this happens so slowly, even a metre of peat can represent a thousand years of growth. And here's why this matters. All of that partially decomposed vegetation contains carbon that those plants originally absorbed from the atmosphere. And as long as the peat remains wet and healthy, much of that carbon can stay locked away. And these landscapes also play an important role in how water moves through our environment, to slow runoff during heavy rainfall and maintain wetter conditions during dry periods. And with the increasingly extreme weather we're experiencing here in Britain, this is becoming more important than ever. We've seen devastating floods, prolonged droughts and wildfires tearing through our landscapes. And a huge part of it is because these landscapes no longer hold water how they should. And while restoring peatlands won't prevent these events entirely, it can help make our landscapes far more resilient to them. But with so much of Britain's peat already degraded we're losing some of these natural protections at a time when we need them most and that's why restoring these landscapes is so important but how do you begin restoring something that has already taken a thousand years to form well one of the answers is a rather remarkable little plant sphagnum moss now this is the hero of this story without this species peat bogs peatlands they wouldn't be able to form it's this plant which enables all of that flood mitigation, drought mitigation and it stores all of that carbon. When it comes to engineering wetlands in the lowlands it's beavers they're the keystone species here but up here in the uplands it's sphagnum moss and how it colonizes these areas is fascinating. So sphagnum moss actually has these microscopic water tanks on it which allow it to hold up to 20 times its own weight in water and it doesn't stop there what it also does is it releases it slowly releases acid into the water which then kills off all the other dominating plant species this then lowers the pH and it creates this low oxygen environment which means that all of this plant material it doesn't fully decompose it partially decomposes and then over thousands of years that's what forms the peat and today with the help of the volunteers will be showing up in a minute we're going to be planting thousands of them yeah this is the stuff that we're going to be planting today this is it's like the moss all right so here we go this is a big big bag of moss i would imagine there's probably a thousand in here maybe once we roll these out don't kiss me i don't have a stake so we're using tree stakes today we're just gonna pop it in probably about one to two inches and then we take the green end at the top and then the white end at the bottom and pop it into the ground and then with the back of your hand you're just gonna firm the top it's great to see all the the people out here as well yeah it is yeah these are gift gaff members yeah uh some members some gift gaff team themselves um and then some just general public we advertise the opportunity on social so we did get some people sign up just you know with no affiliation to giffgaff yeah i think that's it i think people often want to help with nature nature restoration but they just don't have a way no exactly what's what's the plan for the coming years yeah we will continue to invest in this site so we'll have more volunteering opportunities for our members and the general public to get out here with us and we're going to continue to to invest in this site and develop it over time. This work here is significant as it's the start of rebuilding this habitat but 80% of the UK's three million hectares of peatland remain in a degraded state. For water retention that means a staggering baseline reservoir of up to 55 trillion litres of water is structurally compromised and at risk of being lost dried out and flushed away and when you begin to understand this scale as we face these climate extremes it's no wonder why britain burns in the summer and floods in the winter wetland doesn't burn and we need more commitment like what we've seen here from giffgaff to continue not just restoring peatlands but nature throughout britain all All right, so Steve, the work here is funded by giffgaff, right? This is, I think, the future of nature restoration at scale in Britain. Just talk to me a little bit about the kind of mechanism behind what that future could look like. So giffgaff, in partnership with Manygo League O&D and Ecology, founded an industry-wide movement called Media in Service of Nature. and the the program behind that is it enables brands media agencies and media owners to contribute 0.1 percent of their media advertising or marketing spend that go towards projects like this and it's really founded in that that belief of collective action where you get a lot of businesses and a lot of people doing a small thing it all compounds to make a big difference it snowballs and like that will be a significant amount of money you're trying to get to by 2030 200 million right 200 million by 2030 is the big hairy audacious goal, what's not to love about this I actually think this could be a secondary job if I ever get sick of making content you'll find me out here planting plugs kind of cool to think that that could form you know that's the start of like a process which trickles over thousands of years absolutely yeah it's going to be absolutely brilliant and don't forget that restoring nature really can happen anywhere whether if you've got a balcony a garden or maybe even a rewilding project a lot of the principles they remain the same so if you're feeling inspired here's a few things which you can try at home one of the big principles of peatland restoration is holding water where it falls and that's something we can all learn from take water butts for example our Leave Curious community member Josh he installed a water butt in his garden to keep his wildlife ponds topped up during the recent drought and speaking of ponds this is actually one of the best things which we can do for wildlife in our spaces this provides a home and refuge for all sorts of little creatures and even if you've got a balcony a container pond can work brilliantly just make sure that wildlife has a safe way in and out and then there's Greg who decided to take things a little bit further and he built a beaver dam on his stretch river in the south of France and ultimately restoring nature well it doesn't have to be complicated and it's actually pretty good fun too so let us know down in the comments what you've been getting up to in your space come on Jed you have one oh a little notebook as well okay come on perks of the job let's go explore enjoy support oh what is that pair of socks you're on giffgaf or something, wow, what a day, look everywhere you look down here, tiny little sphagnum which have gone in the ground, this is the start of restoring these habitats, it's going to take you know hundreds if not thousands of years to to bring back the peat here but you know it's it's organisations like Giffgaff that are not only enabling this restoration but to get people out in the landscape, you know that's what it's all about and i've thoroughly enjoyed this one getting my hands dirty, just want to say thanks to everyone involved who really made this day what it is, if you haven't yet please do subscribe to Leave Curious here's a video for you to watch next, in the meantime thank you so much for watching Leave Curious.