Newmarket Holidays backs North Pennines peatland restoration

Ongoing donations will support work of the North Pennines AONB Partnership to restore peatland for people, climate and nature

27 September 2023: As part of its ongoing Travel for Good initiative, Newmarket Holidays has announced its support for the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership’s peatland restoration programme.

The tour operator is donating funds for every customer carried from 1 January 2024, to support peatland restoration across the North Pennines AONB and UNESCO Global Geopark – an activity that reduces the amount of carbon being released into the earth’s atmosphere.

Newmarket Holidays’ support will help the North Pennines AONB team to continue its extensive peatland programme, with an area four times the size of Newcastle now under restoration. This nature recovery work reduces the carbon emitted into the atmosphere from damaged peat, and stores carbon within healthy, revegetated peatland.

As well as cutting carbon release, healthy peatland has many more benefits for people and nature. It slows the flow of rainwater into rivers and streams to mitigate the effects of flooding downstream, benefits biodiversity, reduces the risk of wildfires and improves water quality.

This campaign is part of Newmarket Holidays’ wider ‘Travel for Good’ strategy, which includes the operator monitoring its own carbon emissions, partnering with charity Just a Drop, and reviewing its escorted tours to include donations and visits to local projects helping vulnerable people in the area or protecting endangered wildlife.

Niel Alobaidi, Newmarket Holidays CEO said: “We are hugely proud to be supporting this project and working with the North Pennines AONB Partnership.

“Not only is peatland important for wildlife, but it also represents a huge carbon store, so is essential in efforts to tackle climate change. The amount of carbon escaping from degraded peat is responsible for 4% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. As such, we are really grateful for this opportunity to be able to directly support the continuing restoration of these areas, which provides an immediate benefit in terms of reducing emissions, as well as a wide range of additional benefits to society.

“Supporting this work is just one strand of our company-wide Travel For Good strategy. We are also focused on reducing our own carbon footprint by commissioning an external carbon audit of our business to identify where we, our partners and suppliers can reduce our own emissions, and we are also working closely with all our partners to ensure that we increasingly support local suppliers, and that our holidays make a positive contribution to local communities within all our destinations.”

Paul Leadbitter, Peatland Programme Manager for the North Pennines AONB Partnership, said: “We welcome the opportunity to work with Newmarket Holidays and other businesses which are already working on their internal carbon footprint but also looking wider to see how they can further support the conservation sector’s efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.”

For more information about Newmarket Holidays’ Travel For Good initiative, visit https://www.newmarketholidays.co.uk/travel-for-good.

The North Pennines AONB Partnership is working with other protected landscapes and peat partnerships in the North of England, collaborating on the Great North Bog coalition. The Great North Bog is an ambitious, landscape-scale approach to upland peatland restoration and conservation across nearly 7000 square kilometres of peatland soils in the Protected Landscapes of northern England, storing 400million tonnes of carbon. The aim is to deliver a 10-year funding, restoration and conservation plan to make a significant contribution to the UK’s climate and carbon sequestration targets.

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Contact Sarah Hudspeth at North Pennines AONB Partnership for further information – shudspeth@northpenninesaonb.org.uk, Phone: 01388 528801/07768 123247