We and our local partner organisations are committed to doing our bit to help to tackle climate change. Moving towards a situation where the whole National Park is ‘carbon neutral’ (where the amount of greenhouse gas emissions generated in the national park each year is matched or exceeded by the amount of carbon being taken out of the atmosphere) is one of the 6 ambitions for 2040 set out in the Yorkshire Dales National Park Management Plan 2019-24.
The Management Plan also sets out a series of more specific objectives that local partners are now working to achieve, including many that will contribute directly to tackling climate change. Further information and details of the progress we’re making can be found through the links below:
- Restoring peatland
- Creating new woodland
- Reducing road haulage from quarries
- Reducing external lighting to protect our Dark Skies
- YDNPA Farm business support
- Supporting natural flood management
Peatland restoration
The importance of peat as a store of carbon has now been recognised and restoration and conservation work is being undertaken throughout the UK.
The National Park’s peatlands are a nationally-important carbon store, covering around 55,000 ha and up to 7m deep. But much is in a poor condition as a result of artificial drainage that was installed in the 1970s and 1980s.
Restoring all degraded blanket bog/deep peat habitat to ecologically and hydrologically functioning bog is one of the objectives agreed by the Authority and a wide range of local partner organisations in the National Park Management Plan 2019-24.
The Yorkshire Peat Partnership is led by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, and supported by the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, Natural England, National Trust, Environment Agency and North York Moors National Park Authority. It was formed to work with moorland owners to help restore and then conserve the unique and valuable upland peatland habitats across large swathes of Yorkshire.
Since 2009 the Yorkshire Peat Partnership has restored over 23,000 ha of degraded peatland in the National Park, including 414 ha of degraded peatland restored at Summer Lodge, Swaledale; New House and Stake Moss, Bishopdale; and major work at Fleet Moss.
The Great North Bog – An ambitious, grand-scale peatland restoration initiative being developed by the North Pennines AONB Partnership, the Yorkshire Peat Partnership and the Moors for the Future Partnership – it is a landscape approach to restoration across nearly 7000 square kilometres of upland peat in the Protected Landscapes of northern England.
Wider action on climate change
The National Park has the potential to make an important contribution to wider regional efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Further information about this work can be found here: