Get Peaty this summer with Peat-Fest South-West
Art and Energy’s team - Chloe, Jenny & Naomi
The Art and Energy Collective has been awarded £114,397 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to work with other peatland restoration and cultural organisations from across the South West region. Together we will invite thousands of people to join in with Peat-Fest South-West this summer and autumn and encourage a love of our peatland landscapes.
Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. Peat-Fest South-West is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. We want to thank all the National Lottery players who have made this possible.
In Somerset and Dorset, Dartmoor and Exmoor and down to Cornwall, people of all ages will be able to experience the power and joy of peatlands at fun-filled Bogtastic events leading up to COP 30 in November. Broadcasts will provide imaginative, scientific and historical information about the role our peatlands play in combatting climate change, and how their restoration and recovery is essential for all living beings (including ourselves in that!).
Our Peat-Fest South-West webpages will give you full details of all the news, events, bog-cast podcasts, broadcasts plus our partners and collaborators. Peat-Fest South-West will officially launch on Bog Day - Sunday 27th July 2025, a day to celebrate the brilliance of bogs around the world, we’ll share more news of a celebratory plan soon, for now please save the date.
Up on Harford Moor in 2024, the young Wellbeing Warriors from Plymouth, together with people from across Dartmoor enjoy a creative peatland picnic.
Art and Energy has been working in mossy environments for the last 3 years to promote the role of mosses, particularly Sphagnum moss on peatlands. We can learn so much about our own ways by noticing moss! We have had a programme called ‘How to Bury the Giant’, the big climate carbon giant of our times. Peatlands store more carbon than all other landscapes, they really do help to Bury the Giant.
The Mossy Carpet at Hangershell Tor, Dartmoor, 2024.
We have also been making a mass participation artwork, The Mossy Carpet, and Peat-Fest South-West will give us the opportunity to share this work made by thousands from all over the UK and beyond, celebrating the many small moss like actions adding up to create a stronger cultural link to our heritage, making some real positive change to the environment.
RE-PEAT youth led projects on their website
RE-PEAT has been engaged as a key delivery partner for this project, with specific responsibilities for youth engagement, co-creation of youth focused activities at events, capturing young voices for the development of a regional peatland heritage manifesto. RE-PEAT have been working on other Peat-Fests with young people at home and in Europe. They are a youth-led collective changing hearts and minds for and through peatlands. We are looking forward to working closely with them over the coming months.
If you are a young person 14 - 25 and want to get involved, organise events, help us write a manifesto of care, get volunteering in Peatland restoration then please get in touch with us! hello[@]artandenergy.org
Peat-Fest South-West will see us working with organisations across the region in Somerset, Dorset, Dartmoor, Exmoor and Bodmin - meet our partners and collaborators here.
The intermingling of land and water has also drawn us in to the magic and power of peatlands, how they prevent flooding by slowing the flow of water, sponge-like. How they act as a sieve for impurities in the air and water, cleaning it for all the creatures that live there. Peat as upland bog, valley mires, in fens and wet woodlands covers about 10% of the South-West region, but very little of it is healthy and it’s heritage little understood. Peat-Fest South-West is going to raise awareness, and through inspiration and creative times, through joining in we hope to make a real change as our Mossy Carpet completes it’s journey and the youngsters of our lands look to a more positive future.
Peatland restoration on North Dartmoor. Credit SWPP
Restoration of Dorset Mires using bunds to keep the water table high. (Credit DCP)
An aerial shot of the Shapwick Heath NNR peat restoration project on the Somerset Wetlands.
(c) Natural England