Rewilding Futures: Shaping Tomorrow's Wild

Three hundred years ago Chat Moss was impenetrable wilderness, a lowland raised bog of over 36 square kilometres, situated between Liverpool and Manchester at the epicentre of the Industrial Revolution. From historical maps, books and biological recordings it is possible to trace the origins of the ecosystem back to the late Holocene and chart the impact of the past 200 years of human activity, resulting in complete habitat destruction and loss of most wetland flora and fauna. Peatland restoration has been undertaken on local nature reserves since the 1980s. More resources and land have been directed at peatland restoration in recent years, driven by the imperative to preserve carbon stored in the peat and resume carbon sequestration. This process has involved multiple translocations of plant species, some now nationally scarce. The reintroduction of the large heath butterfly in 2020 was one of the major milestones in the project.