The Lost Ponds: Reinstating Ghost Pingos 

The Lost Ponds: Reinstating Ghost Pingos project aims to map, understand and recreate the ghost pingos lost from the Brecks Fen Edge and Rivers landscape area, enabling species expansion and movement across the countryside.  

Learning from the project will be disseminated to landowners and others in the region to facilitate future pingo reinstatement.  

The project is part of the Brecks Fen Edge and Rivers Landscape Partnership, with funding from National Lottery Heritage Fund, working in partnership with University College London, the Norfolk Geodiversity Partnership and Norfolk Ponds Project.  

What’s happened so far  

We have excavated a total of 16 pingos over three years on Watering Farm and across Norfolk. Together with other experts including University College London, the Norfolk Geodiversity Partnership and Norfolk Ponds Project, we will produce new guidance on the restoration of these ancient ponds.   

Volunteers have played an important role in the project by monitoring water levels in ghost pingo areas pre and post restoration. The pre-restoration water level data was crucial in calculating whether ghost pingos would hold water should they be restored, which was a major factor in whether the restoration went ahead. Post restoration monitoring helped validate initial expectations and fine tune the appraisal process.  

A ‘live pingo’ excavation event in August will provide an opportunity for all attendees to be trained in best practice for restoring ghost pingos. The NWT Machinery Operator, who has been involved since the beginning of the project, will partially excavate an identified feature on Watering Farm before the day to show event attendees what the initial stages of the excavation should look like and the reasoning behind this method.  

Along with the guidance document, which will be shared at this event, it will be useful knowledge for landowners and contractors to take away and use on their own properties or in their own projects to reinstate these features for wildlife in the wider landscape.   

How we’ll build on this project?  

This project is the first of its kind and the main objective was to see if reinstatement of a ghost pingo can be done and how best to approach the process. Although the full reports are yet to be submitted, the results obtained so far seem to suggest a resounding “yes” this can be done using the methodology described in this project.  

At the end of the project results of the monitoring data will be shared, including details of species that have emerged in the new pingos. This data combined with the Restoring Ghost Pingo guidance document, will be hugely valuable to any management schemes seeking to reinstate these natural ecological features following best practice.   

The processes used in this project have already been replicated by NWT in a habitat restoration project at a site near Thompson Common, very near Watering Farm. Ghost pingos at Mere Farm have been excavated using experience gained and knowledge learned during the Lost Ponds project to reinstate and expand suitable habitat for pool frogs, which will also benefit other associated wildlife.