The Great Fen, one of the UK’s most innovative habitat restoration initiatives, is altering perspectives on a previously overlooked and undervalued landscape. The Moment discovers how this partnership project is providing a natural solution to the climate crisis and encouraging connections between local communities and their countryside once again.
In this region of vast and limitless skies, the low lying and flat landscape that stretches between Peterborough and Huntingdon was once teeming with wildlife. Birds, amphibians, insects, and aquatic creatures thrived across a unique patchwork of reedbeds, streams, and wetland meadows. However, this area of countryside experienced dramatic change through human activity, resulting in a rapid decline of what was once a naturally biodiverse habitat.
From the 17th century onwards, the fens of Eastern England were drained to create fertile farmland, during which time 99% of wild fen habitat was destroyed. Today, the peat in arable areas continues to erode at around 2cm per year. This unique landscape is at risk of being lost forever. When it became clear that the last two remaining isolated fragments of the original landscape – located at Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen – were under threat, ideas were needed to secure a sustainable future…