Erika Tonhauser, a Glasgow Caledonian University Environmental Management student and summer 2021 Cairngorms Connect intern, worked through August and September as an assistant monitoring officer on a project related to ongoing peatland restoration work in the hills around An Lurg and Bile Buidhe on the RSPB Abernethy Reserve. Covering an area of approximately 1500 hectares, she was collecting data on peatlands vegetation cover - and in the process learned to see peatlands as a unique opportunity to deeply connect with the inspiring nature of the Cairngorms. 

Amanda Thomson, an artist and writer, joined the monitoring survey to learn more about peatland restoration and Erika’s project. Amanda, together with Robbie Synge (choreographer and filmmaker) and Elizabeth Reeder (writer) are Artists in Residence with Cairngorms Connect through the Endangered Landscapes Artists Residency programme, and throughout the year will be learning and making work about Cairngorms Connect and running movement and writing workshops. 

I

Misty image of peatlands past 

Day 1, early August.

Erika.  

I park and lock my E-bike below a young juniper tree at Bynack Stables, take out my monitoring tablet and weather writer, and start heading up towards An Lurg. The day is grey and thick fog rolls peacefully down from the hills. As I walk, I curiously inspect the large, uncovered patches of bare peat and when I am somewhere near An Lurg cairn, light shower comes on.  The atmosphere around this vast open space, very quiet and seemingly empty, is almost black & white - what makes me feel nostalgic and I start reflecting on the past of this place, and my mission here.  

I remember that there are three main types of peatlands in Scotland: blanket bogs - where An Lurg peatlands belong, raised bogs and fens. Bogs are formed thanks to complex interactions between geology, soil properties, topography and climate and are usually covered by diverse vegetation - the colourful sphagnum mosses or different grass and shrub types. This makes me frown - how come then that all these vast areas of bare peat are surrounding me? 

The story of each peat bog is different - it can be a complex combination of environmental factors, land use and land management that writes a peatland’s life story. I, however, learn later from research and local communities that all the eroded gullies (erosion channels) and peat hags (isolated islands of peat) exist in the An Lurg area most likely due to management fires aiming to improve grazing and grouse moor management, but also historically high numbers of sheep and deer grazing in the area. I imagine replacing the peaceful bog with fire smoke or white flocks of sheep, and suddenly see why me, and thousands of other people all around the UK and across the globe, are part of this urgent restoration mission. Because peat is made of partially decomposed remains which have accumulated at the surface of the soil profile, peatlands store a lot of carbon - meaning once damaged and exposed, peat releases carbon and other greenhouse gases. Additionally, peat erosion affects water – it can increase water peak flows, potentially causing flooding further downstream, but can also reduce water tables and quality and increase sedimentation, damaging local biodiversity. 

^{An Lurg peatlands. Credit: Erika Erika Tonhauser.}   

II  
Clear horizon for peatlands restoration 

Day 7, late August. 

Erika 

I drive up a rough track to a parking spot below the plateau and the quickly changing colours of the surrounding landscape make me think of the beauty ecological diversity brings. As I head up towards Bile Buidhe, some big environmental questions are on my mind - but I don’t get lost in my thoughts today. 

Because on this bright day, my mission is unusual – as I am accompanied by artist and writer Amanda, whom I hope to make as intrigued by the magical character of peatlands as I am. I’m explaining all about my work as we walk up the hill, and when we reach the plateau, we venture in different directions in pursuit of capturing the data – and the beauty of the day.  

As I gather data, I look beyond Bile Buidhe towards An Lurg where restoration work took place previous year, and take a moment to let the process of the ongoing restoration sink in. I start by picturing machines and people at work in the area a few months ago. There would be a buzz of a helicopter carrying a lifting bag full of brash (scalped local vegetation) from lower down the hill. There would be an excavator, adjusting eroded slopes to flatter angles, supporting natural re-vegetation of bare peat. And then, there would be people with smaller machinery and tools - spreading the brash from bags and installing restoration technology - such as coir logs and stone dams (systems to slow water flows and trap peat sediments) to address hydrological part of the restoration process. In the Abernethy, restoration evidence can now be seen around An Lurg, but more is to come in other areas, too. 

Day 7, late August 

Amanda 

It’s always a rare privilege to walk in places that you wouldn’t ordinarily go to. On the first day I walk with Erika, we head to the top of Bile Buidhe and when we stop to rest, we turn back to look down towards the forest of Abernethy beneath us. Looking over to where the Faeshellach burn cuts down, Ellie, Cairngorm Connect’s Monitoring Officer, is just a tiny speck cutting along to the east, heading for a burn and gathering water samples to measure water quality and runoff amount. Further down, deep amongst the heather, Pip, Cairngorm Connect’s Project Scientist, is carrying out a baseline vegetation survey for future broadleaf regeneration. It’s all connected, has to be connected. 

Once on the plateau, the vast peatland spreads out before us. We stop and look over to high peaks that would take perhaps a day’s walk or more to reach. Erika is carrying a tablet with GIS (geographic information systems) software, and explains she is going to be ‘ground truthing’: matching the colours from the drone photography to the vegetation and key species of the actual landscape we’re walking. She overlays the map with colourful geometric shapes indicating bare peat; shrubs; sedges; mosses; and various other habitats. All this is done to programme an application which will identify the colours of the vegetation automatically in the future.  I love how her wanderings seem random, but they’re in fact dictated by the questions she has about the colours on the map on her tablet.  

The sun is out, and time goes by in an instant. At the end of the day, I’m surprised at how far our wanderings have taken us, and how long it takes us to make our way back to our vehicle.   

^{_{An Lurg and Bile Buidhe peatlands vegetation from top left: sphagnum moss and heather; cotton grass; crowberry. From bottom left: Cloudberry and lichen; a letter shaped pool and sedges; cloudberry, crowberry and sphagnum moss. Credit: Erika Tonhauser.}} 

III 

The bigger picture of the future 

Day 11, mid-September 

Erika 

I meet Amanda one more time and we repeat our journey to the plateau. Today she is assisting me with data capture while shooting more photos and videos which will represent soon-to-be-finished Cairngorm Connect monitoring season of 2021.  

Looking at the bigger picture, humans are small and yet capable of huge action. Perhaps from a similar point of view, peatlands are the same - these amazing lands cover only about 3% of the surface on Earth, however they have a potential to play a major role in the climate change battle. To help putting things into perspective - Scotland's peatlands hold hundreds of millions of tonnes of carbon which is believed to be three times more than UK's woodlands combined altogether - and just imagining how much more it could be if we restore their health I smile and feel proud of myself for being a tiny cog in the peatlands restoration process.  

As orange deer grass tips sway in late summer's wind and blaeberry leaves start turning red in this paradise, I look at the mapped area on my device, covered all over with tiny colourful points and shapes representing various types of vegetation or bare peat, and I dream that perhaps a human of the future will stand here and see a palette of colours instead of all this bare peat, reminding us of mismanaged past of this wonderful land. 

Day 11, mid-September 

Amanda 

This place can feel desolate, empty, but of course it’s not.  

Walking on the plateau, we see red grouse flying out almost from under us, telling us to go back go back go back. On a nearly invisible path, red deer tracks are imprinted across the peat. Between grass and heather, the deep browns of bare peat become almost black in shadow, and we dip down and around them, sometimes encountering deep peaty pools of uncertain depth that reflect the sky and insects that scoot across them. Micro-moths are stirred up from the sedges and heather. There are bright greens and sometimes reds of sphagnum mosses, deer grass that from afar looks on fire; and on, in the peat itself, almost unnervingly, sometimes we’ll encounter the remains of trees that you know were sometimes quite substantial, that you can’t help thinking look like bones. It’s almost impossible to imagine this place having trees at all, and perhaps that’s the thing.  

While we can’t quite imagine these landscapes as they used to be or how they might change once more, that’s what we need to do, in order to imagine a more hopeful future.  

^{Tree remains around Bile Bhuidhe. Credit: Erika Tonhauser}