We have a magnificent multigenerational and multi-talented team recording and producing our peaty podcasts to celebrate the heritage of peatlands across the South-West region of England. 

From the launch of the Peat-Fest South-West festival to our first workshops this summer, this first bogcast, called ‘Beginnings’ gives an idea of the many different voices involved in this celebration of peatlands. From the fantastic specialists and peatland restorers to our young and older participants, with their history and stories to tell, this bogcast asks ‘what is peat?’, encourages curiosity as to why peat is so special and how it reduces the impact of climate change. You will hear facts, fiction and folksong, alongside passion!

Listen to 'Beginnings' on the Peat-Fest South-West website or via Spotify or SoundCloud.

The South-West region of England is not as renowned for its peatland landscapes as the Flow country in Scotland, or the Yorkshire moors, but nevertheless it is really significant with more than 10% of our South-West land covered in peat, and only 3% remaining as a healthy ecosystem. From peatland pockets in among the Dorset heaths to extensive blanket bog on the tops of Exmoor and Dartmoor, with additional boggy woods and valleys, Peat-Fest South-West is sharing our knowledge and inspiring young people to get involved.

There are going to be 7 bogcasts (podcasts) overall. The final one will share a manifesto for peatland from young people across the region, developed at events and workshops.  We are grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund for supporting this partnership. 

A long list of organisations are collaborating to deliver the festival and these bogcasts – The Art and Energy Collective, RE-PEAT, Dorset Heaths Partnership, Avalon Marshes Partnership, Exmoor National Park, Dartmoor National Park, South West Peatland Partnership, National Trust Dartmoor, IUCN UK Peatland Programme and many more individuals.

Matilda Wright, a young associate of Art and Energy begins to sketch out the storyline, this is refined by RE-PEAT and the rest of the team and a script produced.  Then we all go out and record elements to enable different voices to be heard from the events and meetings. This part of the process is determined by forces ranging from who turns up, people’s day to day business, the weather - it is exciting, as you don’t know exactly how it will be at the start of the day. Finally, all of these snippets are edited and the audio adjusted to bring the bogcast alive. 

Each bogcast is atmospheric and lively, sharing some music, story telling or poetry to add to our cultural heritage, some of it will be new, others borrowed from organisations such as Hot Poets - the climate science and poetry organisation that matches world class poets with the amazing scientists, innovators and educators doing the work to protect our world.

Listen to Beginnings on the Peat-Fest South-West website or via Spotify or SoundCloud.

Have a listen and let us know what you think.  We have six more to complete over the coming weeks, so any comments will help us make the next ones even better! 

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