A project to restore Yorkshire’s precious peatlands, including moors around Bronte Country and Skipton, has successfully saved more than 100 square miles of the landscape.

The Yorkshire Peat Partnership embarked on the multi-million pound project over four years ago, and in that time has restored 25 per cent of Yorkshire’s Moors.

Locally, the restoration project has helped reverse erosion and damage to Oxenhope Moor dating back to the Industrial Revolution.

Peat is a natural way of storing potentially harmful Carbon Dioxide, and it is estimated that the restoration project has prevented almost 30,000 tonnes of the gas being released from the Earth into the atmosphere – equivalent to the annual output of 62,000 houses.

The YPP is led by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, funded by Natural England, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water and Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and supported by various environmental agencies and countryside groups.

Oxenhope Moor had seen areas of vegetation deteriorate over time due to fire and pollution from the factories that sprung up in the Bradford area during the Industrial Revolution, which dried out the peat that makes up the landscape. This can not only spoil the appearance of the moor, but also lead to chemicals seeping into the water supply and increasing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.

The project there, which is now complete, saw drainage channels filled in and native plant species re-planted.

Since 2009, the YPP had spent more than £5 million restoring peat.

YPP programme manager Dr Tim Thom was part of the Oxenhope project, and said a recent return visit to the site showed that moss and other plants were slowly returning to previously dried out swathes of land, and should be fully established within five years.

He added: “Helping to restore more than a quarter of Yorkshire’s peatlands is a significant achievement – not only does it ensure that rare and precious wildlife is protected but it safeguards peatland landscapes for us all to enjoy.

“The knowledge, assistance and expertise of landowners, gamekeepers and farmers have underpinned the successful delivery of every peatland restoration project that we have completed. We’re making good progress, but we’ve still got a long way to go.

“It would be great if we could go from 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the land being restored in the next ten years.”