Wonderfully Welcome Work on the Wansbeck

We will have heard that technology will assist with carbon-capture and storage to help us reach net-zero and avert climate catastrophe.

But an exciting example of how nature's own methods can help in this effort is underway very close at hand, in the upper reaches of the Wansbeck valley.

Thanks to a £600,000 grant from Natural England, environmental charity Groundwork North East and Cumbria have established Wansbeck Restoration for Climate Change ( WRCC ), one of only six projects nationwide being funded to trial ways of capturing carbon by natural processes. Covering 355 acres of farmland comprising the Wallington, Middleton North and Little Harle estates, the scheme is a collaboration between landowners, managers, farmers and scientists from Natural England and Northumbria University and consists of work on seven priority habitats over sixteen sites. WRCC commenced in January 2023 and ran until March this year, although monitoring activity will continue.

WRCC aims to restore degraded habitat by ' nature-based solutions ' such as tree-planting ( including on protected river banks ); hedgerow restoration; 10,000 metres of fencing ( including along the banks of water-courses ); restoration of peatland (charmingly termed ‘peaty-pockets'); overseeding meadows with locally sourced wildflower seeds; encouraging water-courses to move into former channels ( known as paleo-channels ) to make more space for water in high-flow events.

Protecting the banks of water-courses with fencing, for instance, will keep livestock from damaging adjoining grassland allowing revival of a variety of plants, preventing faecal pollution from farm stock and helping create healthier water quality and aquatic life and, where the strip is planted with young trees, increasing the potential for greater diversity of species locally.

It will be anticipated that having created more diverse and resilient eco-systems within these different habitats, nature will work its magic and there should be greatly enhanced absorption of greenhouse gasses at those sites.

Through soil-sampling, water-quality monitoring and fixed-point photography (on the Harwood Burn) it should be possible to evaluate the success of WRCC.

As Robert McFarlane releases his latest work 'Is a River Alive?' and DEFRA's latest survey informs us that 80% of England's peatlands are dry and degraded (Guardian 11/5/25), could these measures be more welcome?

Paul Thompson

(Photograph by Michael MacCallam)