Broads National Park

Broadly Speaking

Science EN ↓ 4 episodes

Funded by Defra, the Broads Authority is building a peatland community to confront one of the region’s most urgent climate challenges: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 2,000 hectares of drained peat soils. Through the Broads Peat Partnership, action is underway across the Broads, and this podcast forms a key part of that engagement work. In each episode, Andrea Kelly—who has worked in the Broads for over 30 years—speaks with farmers, landowners, water managers and authors to capture diverse perspectives and explore real-world solutions.

Author

Broads National Park

Episodes

Farming and Feeling Wetlands 13.01.2026 21:40

In this final episode of Broadly Speaking, the focus turns to how we relate to wetlands: emotionally, culturally, and practically. Through stories of species recovery, farming adaptation and landscape history, Andrea Kelly explores what it really means to live with water in a place shaped by centuries of human intervention. From swallowtail butterflies and bitterns, to farmers managing peat grazin...

How we Manage Water 13.01.2026 22:37

In the Broads, water is everything — and increasingly, it’s unpredictable. This episode of Broadly Speaking focuses on how water is managed in a low-lying, climate-exposed landscape where flooding, drought, food production and nature all compete for the same resource. Andrea Kelly speaks with people working on drainage, catchment-scale planning and farming to explore whether our water systems are...

The Science of Peat 13.01.2026 20:19

The ground beneath the broads holds one of our greatest climate opportunities — and one of our biggest risks. In this episode of Broadly Speaking , Andrea Kelly explores lowland peat: what it is, why it matters, and how centuries of drainage have turned it from a carbon store into a carbon source. With insight from ecology, land management and policy, the conversation looks at why peatlands are c...

Broadly Speaking: Trailer 13.01.2026 2:38

Peatlands may be the UK’s biggest untapped solution to Net Zero. Drained lowlands that once supported livelihoods now sit at the heart of a climate dilemma. In three episodes, natural history writers Patrick Barkham and Helen Baczkowska, alongside those who manage and own the Broads National Park, explore a landscape on the edge of change.