Community interest company, Buy Land Plant Trees, has used proceeds from its parent company Chimney Sheep, known for its Herdwick Wool chimney draught excluders, to buy the land on Low Fell.

In line with the global COP26 Goals, the 158-acre plot near Loweswater in the Western Lake District will form part of Chimney Sheep’s strategy to act at a local level to help reduce and further prevent the effects of climate change. This will be achieved via the planting of trees, the re-establishment of moorland and the restoration of a peat bog on the Wainwright fell.

The restoration project will be undertaken by ecologist and Director of Chimney Sheep, Sally Phillips helped by Woodland Trust and Cumbria Rivers Trust.

The main aims of the Low Fell planting project will be to increase carbon capture, help with local flood mitigation and increase habitats for local wildlife. The carefully thought-out project will look to increase the level of vegetation on the fell via the planting of trees with species such as rowan, hawthorn, blackthorn, crabapple, willow, birch, alder and aspen.

The piece of land will also see an increase in the volume of scrub and moorland by aiding the recovery of plants such as heather, juniper and bilberry, accelerating the goals of the higher-level stewardship scheme for moorland restoration the fell is currently under. This combined with the tree planting will help to naturally increase carbon capture.

Sally Phillips, Director of Chimney Sheep said “This is an extremely exciting project to take on and we hope that over time, the work we put into restoring the landscape to a more natural state on Low Fell will help to reduce some of the impacts of climate change in our local area. My motto is ‘think globally, act locally’ and that is exactly what this project is all about – taking the goals of COP26 and putting them into action locally. The next few months will be spent fixing fences, giving the land a rest from grazing to allow the heather and bilberry to recover, starting the process of the restoration of the peat bog, and beginning the planting of the willow trees.”