Blanket Bog Monitoring - Lake Vyrnwy

Tender description

RSPB Cymru manages 10,000 hectares of upland in the Lake Vyrnwy catchment, making up a quarter of the Berwyn SAC, SPA, SSSI, NNR. The reserve is internationally important for its features of dry heath and blanket bog. Blanket bog at Lake Vyrnwy has been degraded by historical ditches, gullies and peat cuts. This has increased drainage, leading to heather dominance on former blanket bog. Whilst many ditches were blocked by a previous LIFE project, two further moorland interventions will be delivered as part of a new project to be delivered 2020-23: - Peatland restoration by ditch and gully damming, and peat hag reprofiling, informed by a Peatland Code baseline assessment. - Mechanical heather mowing (~500 ha) followed by targeted livestock grazing targeted using mineral licks as pull-factors. Our objective is to measure the magnitude of change in SAC condition and vegetation structure under different combinations of mowing, grazing and rewetting across three areas of blanket bog. We require a baseline survey of habitat condition and vegetation structure to inform the project plans and against which to measure the effectiveness of the planned interventions.