Defra’s Lowland Agricultural Peat Forum 2024 brought together over 170 attendees from across England.

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Project teams gathered together included those working as part of:

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• Nature for Climate Peatland Grant Scheme- Lowland Restoration projects (past and present) co-ordinated by Natural England

• Nature for Climate Fund - Paludiculture Exploration Fund projects co-ordinated by Natural England

• Lowland Agricultural Peat Water Discovery Pilot projects co-ordinated by the Environment Agency

• Lowland Agricultural Peat Small Infrastructure Pilot projects co-ordinated by the Association of Drainage Authorities

• Environment and Land Management Scheme - Landscape Recovery projects that feature lowland peat

• Environment and Land Management Scheme – Countryside Stewardship including those investigating new higher water table management options

• Natural Environment Investment Readiness Fund projects that feature lowland peat co-ordinated by the Environment Agency

• Research projects including Defra’s main co-ordinated project Lowland Peat 3.

The Defra teams welcomed everyone to the event and gave an introduction to the breadth of work in lowland peat landscapes.

The Forum included a number of discussion and workshop sessions, which aimed to:

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• Allow sharing of ways of working, as well as findings, from ongoing work across England’s lowland peat landscape

• Increase understanding of breadth and depth of work taking place across England’s lowland peat landscapes

• Recognise and celebrate progress to date

• Break barriers in understanding, promote new ways of looking and share learning

• Facilitate development of new partnerships and collaborations

• Consider ways to accelerate delivery of actions

The first activity invited attendees to work together to create regional summary presentations to introduce the landscape, ongoing work and the challenges they were facing. Attendees also provided short individual summaries of their ongoing projects that can be filtered by region and accessed here.

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Andrew Merritt drew Day 1 to a close, as an artist he gave us a different perspective as he led us through a group activity on the layered landscapes in lowland peat regions drawing from Recipes for slow disaster

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On the second day, attendees worked in groups of 10-30 people to discuss questions that has been suggested in advance. Notes from the Breakout groups (link to page)are provided for reference.

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We finished the Forum by reflecting on how we as individuals might work differently, in new partnerships and collaborations, to accelerate practical delivery of actions. Reflections on What can we learn about accelerating change from past work? from Robert Caudwell and Chris Dean were chaired by Sophie Chapman, Defra.

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Thanks to all who participated and we hope this record of events helps to continue the conversations.

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