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Celebrating the success of a community led conservation project

Aerial view of Leadburn Community Woodland. Credit: K Neville.

The Friends of Leadburn Community Woodland have led a forest to bog restoration project to improve peatland habitats in the Scottish Borders.
Aerial view of an oblong-shaped brown patch of land with a strip of conifer trees on one side and green fields on the other. There are visible drains running obliquely across it.

Leadburn Community Woodland felled forest to bog site before restoration works took place. Credit: K Neville.

Tweed Forum recently received some drone imagery of the Leadburn Community Woodland Forest to Bog restoration project and were keen to shine a spotlight on the good work undertaken by the community group to improve the peatland habitats at their site in the Scottish Borders.

Leadburn Community Woodland is a former conifer plantation site which is now managed for conservation by the Friends of Leadburn Community Woodland group. Habitats at the site include a mixture of raised bog, native woodland and open water.

Following the success of a Peatland ACTION funded trial project to restore a 4-hectare area of bog habitat at the site, the community group, in partnership with Tweed Forum, undertook a project to restore a further 12 hectares of lowland raised bog at the site.

Aerial view of a stump-flipping machine on a patch of flat, open ground.

Machine carrying out stump flipping and ground smoothing works for Leadburn Community Woodland. Credit: K Neville.

Efforts had been made by the community group back in 2009 to restore the bog by blocking drainage ditches with plastic dams, but the remaining ridge and furrow was still allowing water loss. The site, therefore, required machine intervention to smooth the surface of the bog and restore the water table. 

Two low-ground pressure machines were brought in to carry out stump flipping and ground smoothing work. In addition to this, bunding was also constructed around the periphery of the deeper peat areas to help with further retention of water. 

The aerial images below show the restoration site following the surface smoothing works and then a year on from the restoration works. Vegetation is now recovering well and the site is looking consistently wetter throughout the year. The community group have been giving the vegetation recovery a helping hand, by heeling in sphagnum in the wetter areas of the site. Birdlife is also increasing following the re-wetting work: sightings of snipe are on the up and oystercatcher and lapwing were also spotted investigating the site following the stump flipping works.

Aerial view of an oblong-shaped brown patch of land with green fields on one side. There are visible pools dotted across the site..

Leadburn Community Woodland project site following machine works. Credit: K Neville.

Aerial view of an oblong-shaped brown patch of land with green fields on one side.

The Leadburn Community Woodland restoration site a year after works completed. Credit: K Neville.

This project was funded directly by the community group and the project management of the groundworks was supported by Tweed Forum. If you’d like further information about the work of the Friends of Leadburn Community Woodland or Tweed Forum, please see below links.

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