Rare freshwater wildlife is making a remarkable comeback in the Brecks, thanks to an innovative collaboration between us and partners to rediscover and restore ancient Ice Age ponds.
Most ponds are man-made features, but in the Brecks there are some truly ancient ponds and depressions, often known collectively as ‘pingos’, which originated through natural glacial processes at the end of the last Ice Age, over 10,000 years ago. ‘Ghost’ pingos are pingos that have been filled in by humans, normally to facilitate larger scale agricultural production.
University College London (UCL), Norfolk Geodiversity Partnership and the Norfolk Ponds Project have been working with us to locate and re-excavate buried pingo ponds hidden beneath farmland. The project was part of the Brecks Fen Edge and Rivers Landscape Partnership scheme, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.