Malham's just, and the whole of the Yorkshire Dales actually, is just this incredible place to be.
As it changes through the seasons the whole place comes to life.
And you'll walk along the boardwalk. I've seen species here that I've never seen anywhere else.
So climate change is affecting this landscape in a number of ways. So we're already seeing
really dry periods particularly in spring and summer. And then when it does rain,
like the rain really really comes down. So those two things together can cause more erosion,
particularly of peat, and also contribute to the problems that we've seen in some of our buildings,
and with our stone walls and kind of our access and facilities.
Across the whole of the Yorkshire Dales there's a lot we're doing to fight climate change.
So we have a lot of deep peat. Not just the incredible raised bog here, but we also have
a lot of blanket bog which is on the hilltops. We're working with the Yorkshire Peat Partnership
to identify how we can restore that blanket bog and improve tarn moss to make sure that we can
store even more carbon in the future.
So at the moment we're standing on the edge of Malham Tarn Moss,
and this is a raised bog. The peat here is really deep. So in some places it's 10 metres deep.
What we're seeing here are longer drier spells, more cloudless days like today,
and the water levels in some of the streams and some of the ponds have really started to drop.
That means there's areas that can start to dry out and then you start to get other species
like grasses coming in when you really want to keep lots of this nice moss. And over time that
could mean that the bog becomes drier and then it doesn't hold carbon as effectively.
So we have four ponies here out on the nature reserve and they're doing a really incredible job
of helping us to manage this landscape. So this is called purple moor grass. As you can see it sort
of forms these quite dense tussocks so it becomes quite dominant. And it means that other species
don't have as much of an opportunity to grow. And the ponies have started doing a brilliant job here
of just starting to graze this off which means that other species like some of this sphagnum
which is just coming through can really flourish, and that helps increase biodiversity.
We are standing on the edge of Malham Tarn where it meets Tarn Moss.
In 1790 Lord Ribblesdale put a dam in which increased the level of the tarn. So since then, because the water
level's been much higher, it's been eroding tarn moss, and eroding the peat. And of course with more
severe weather and storms the action of the waves and the water against
the edge of the peat will be more severe. In some places this cliff was over three metres high.
So what we've been doing is trying to prevent some of that wave action by putting this wave break in.
So this helps to reduce the power of the waves when they hit the cliff.
This is not just about protecting the edge and preventing erosion of peat into the water, it's also about
making sure the whole bog area can stay wet and grow in size so we can continue to store carbon.
I do feel quite anxious about climate change and how we're going to tackle it.
And I think that anxiety is much better working somewhere like this because every day I come to work and I feel
like we're making a really big difference and that we're going to help to tackle climate change.
Not only here at Malham but across the National Trust and protect this special place for the future.