Britain is internationally important for its peat bogs and has a responsibility to conserve these globally threatened habitats. Bogs are primarily rain-fed (ombrotrophic) acidic wetlands, deriving their mineral nutrients from rainfall. They are therefore restricted to humid, oceanic climates.  Peat bogs are distributed through the uplands of Wales and there is also a scattered remnant of rare lowland bogs. RCT supports some of the most important peatbogs in South Wales. These include extensive areas of upland blanket bog (much of which is afforested), with areas of summit mire and elevated valley mire bog. Key upland areas of blanket bog include the upland plateaus above the head of the Rhondda Valleys and on the west side of the Cynon Valley with smaller, but important, areas in the southern uplands between Tonyrefail and Pontypridd. There is also a very important resource of lowland raised bog and valley mire sites that include; the Blaencynon SAC and areas around Rhigos, Buarth Y Capel at Ynysbwl, Y Waun at Tonyrefail and a series of lowland bog features on Llantrisant Common and Pastures SSSI. We are very, very fortunate to have such a wealth of peat bog habitat in our LNP area. 

Peat is formed from the remains of bog plants.  The peat depth increases as the sphagnum bog moss and other bog species grow and die. As a very rough rule of thumb, every 1 metre of depth of peat equates to a thousand years of plant growth. Deep peat sites are habitats of great antiquity and may have started to develop in the early centuries after the last ice age, many thousands of years ago. 

 
The flora of both raised and blanket bogs is very special and characteristic. It includes a range of sphagnum moss species, cotton grasses, cross-leaved heath, deer-grass, bog asphodel and sundews. Upland bogs should also support a characteristic breeding bird assemblage, although in the last twenty years we have unfortunately lost our breeding populations of snipe and curlew. However in the winter, snipe and jack snipe can be found and, if you are lucky, hen harriers and short eared-owls can be seen. In the last few years, a significant population of water vole has been discovered in the uplands of RCT (and adjacent parts of NPT) using peat bog habitats and associated streams, this incredible discovery of a species which was feared to be extinct in the County Borough shows why survey work off the ‘beaten-track’ is so important. There is also a distinctive upland invertebrate community, often associated with peat pools, that includes keeled skimmer, black darter and common hawker dragonflies. 

Unfortunately, peat bogs were until recently considered only as sources of garden peat or as waste ground to be ‘improved’. The denudation of British peat bogs through peat extraction, forestry, landfill and drainage for agriculture has been on a vast scale. In addition, the deposition of nitrogen from vehicle and industrial pollution has compromised the chemistry of the peat, and periodically sites are affected by grass fires. All RCT peatbogs have been damaged and modified by human activity, however they still represent (as both individual sites and a collective) habitat of extremely high nature conservation importance. They are also habitats which can respond well to sympathetic management and hydrological restoration. This is becoming more relevant for policy makers because peat is an important store of atmospheric carbon trapped within the waterlogged semi-decomposed remains of its constituent plants. However, because of drainage and forestry planting, the peatbogs of Wales are currently not as waterlogged as they should be and aerobic bacteria are busily recycling, historically captured, carbon from the peat back into the atmosphere. As result our peat bogs are major net admitters of carbon. However if re-wetted and restored, then the peat carbon can once again be locked away.  If sphagnum mosses can recolonise, then current day atmospheric carbon can be captured and stored through natural processes. So, there is a real opportunity to realise both major biodiversity and carbon benefit if we restore our bogs.