Latest news with #peat
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘It takes 25 years for a footprint to disappear' – the secret, beguiling magic of Britain's bogs
I haven't found an hour when I don't love a bog. Recently, after a night of counting rare caterpillars in Borth in Mid Wales (they come out only after dark), walking back to the car under the glow of a flower moon, I wondered if 2am was my new favourite. I felt very safe, held by the bog's softness, and everyone that was out at that hour seemed to have a sense of humour. I met a nightjar hopping around on the ground, pretending, I think, to be a frog. But there is also something about the humidity of a languid afternoon on a bog, when everything slows and fat bumbles hum, that is surprisingly good. I have done freezing horizontal rain and thick, cold-to-your-bones fog and wind so howling that I couldn't think. All of those were hard, but I did come away feeling truly alive. I have travelled to the tip of Scotland and far beyond to visit bogs. In all the hours, days and weeks I have spent on them, I have learned that time behaves differently. It stretches out like the bog landscape, seeming to still the world beyond. There is something very special about that. Like many of us, I came to know bogs not by visiting one, but by ripping open a bag of compost and plunging my hands into the soft, dark peat. Then I learned that there was more to peat than an amiable bed in which to coax a plant to grow. It is ripped from a living, breathing entity with complex ways and wants. We sneer at bogs, we tease them and drain them, scrape at them and pillage them, but give them back their waters and they care not just for the creatures that live on them, but those much further afield. There is more carbon stored in peatlands than in all the above-ground vegetation in the world. They account for 3% of landmass, but hold at least 30% of soil carbon. Seventy per cent of the UK's drinking water starts its journey on peatlands, where the bogs not only filter but also slow water, helping to mitigate flooding. This is why draining, extracting and turning peat into agricultural land has consequences. Roughly 80% of the UK's peatlands are damaged, polluting our water, exacerbating flooding and increasing the risk of fires. But this knowledge doesn't stop us using extracted peat. Sure, I don't buy peat compost, but I have eaten fresh cultivated mushrooms (most large-scale growing is done in peat), bought supermarket basil (usually peat-grown), 'saved' numerous discounted houseplants (only about 11% of houseplants are truly grown peat-free) and eaten lettuce, celery, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans and tomatoes, some of which are grown in the UK on drained peat, as well as crisps, biscuits, cakes and chips made with palm oil grown on drained peatlands in south-east Asia. Most of us are complicit in damaging, extracting and wasting peat, despite years of writing, campaigning, shouting and imploring. I decided I would get to know the bogs, to learn their ways and stories and see if a different song might stir the soul. Bogs are magical in many ways. These ancient beings are much more than their brown flatness suggests from a distance. Below the surface, they seduce water with their engineering. Under every bog is a sea held in suspension, so when you walk over a bog you are truly walking on water. It is why they wobble when you jump up and down on them. They are nature's answer to a water bed. Don't jump, though – they are fragile places. It takes an average of 25 years for a footprint to disappear. What is a bog? Well, there are many types of peatlands, but broadly speaking peat is either fen or – more frequently – bog. A fen is alkali: it gets its water from a ground or surface source and is flushed with minerals because of it. A bog is acid: it is fed entirely by the sky, which means it is very poor in nutrients. Bogs form in wet places, where the humidity and rainfall are high and evapotranspiration (the combined process where water moves from land to air) is low. Many of them start life as a depression, a hollow or a dip in the land that starts to fill with water. The rock below is hard, often impervious, such as granite, and the water pools. As the climate and world around it change, things begin to grow around the bog: plants spring up, die, fall in the water. The dip starts to fill with rotting organic matter, creating oxygen-poor, acidic conditions. Most things don't want to grow in waters that are turning acidic, but mosses don't mind; in fact, they thrive. This is particularly true of bog mosses, which are from the genus Sphagnum. The mosses creep in, the rain continues to fall and the bog is born, made up of plants, mostly mosses, some rushes and a few shrubs, living and dying, but not completely rotting. This is what peat is: partially decomposed organic matter. When it is wet, it is happy; when it is drained of water, it starts rotting again. A similar process happens with fens. But whereas peat is extracted from bogs to be used for compost, most of our lowland fens have been drained for agriculture. That flush of minerals from the groundwater makes them fertile places, once drained. Peat in the northern hemisphere is mostly made up of mosses. They call the shots; they are the ecosystem engineers. These tiny, centimetre-high plants are alchemists, taking only what falls from the sky and creating a kind of immortality for themselves as they strive to be dead and alive at the same time. They do this by pickling themselves and everything that falls into the bog in acid, which means nothing entirely rots away. The bog mosses' pickle juice also prevents bigger plants from doing too well and shading out the moss. The mosses do this in such style, too. They don't stick to the run-of-the-mill green – they come in every jewel tone imaginable: golds and oranges, neon-green emeralds, lobster pinks and deep wine reds, in russets and chestnut browns, their colours turning with the seasons, deepening across the summer. What appears flat from a distance up close rises and falls in miniature mountains of hummock-type mosses, with valleys, pools and lawns of looser types. The things that live on and in this world have run with this otherworldly theme. There are the giants: bog bush-crickets with their huge antennae; emperor moths with their peacock-like eyespots on their wings; darters, damselflies and dragonflies of all colours that often come to peer at you curiously if you sit for a while. This is to say nothing of the green-eyed horseflies, which are a terrifying size, although it is hard to not be beguiled by their giant emerald eyes. There are frogs, toads, lizards, snakes and so many spiders, including one of Britain's largest, the raft spider. Spend long enough at a bog pool and you might spot one floating, waiting for the vibrations of prey, only to run across the surface of the water and pounce. They go for prey as large as tadpoles, but if you frighten them, they dive and swim underwater. Imagine that – a swimming spider! These are just the easy-to-spot guys. There is an abundance of tiny insects: pseudoscorpions, gnats, midges (not all of which bite), strange-looking larvae and tiny micromoths that flit about. These bring an abundance of other wings. Peatlands are hugely important habitats for birds: hen harriers, golden and white-tipped eagles, merlins, owls, jack snipes, golden plovers, curlews, lapwings, pipits, snow buntings, grouse, dunlins, redshanks and, at coastal edges, strange-looking ducks. A chorus of beings in full song for those intrepid enough to venture in. For that is the thing about bogs: they are not hugely interested in wowing you. The mountains have good views and the forest has majesty; the sand dunes sculpture and the wildflower meadow an easy romance. But the bog is quite happy to be passed over – it will share its best secrets only with those who carefully tiptoe in and are patient enough to wait a while to see what comes out once they have settled down. The bog has other secrets, too: underneath this living layer, preserved in all that peat, is an archive of our past doings. A healthy bog grows just a millimetre a year, which puts in context anyone who tries to argue that cutting peat is sustainable. It is important to remember that less than 13% of our bogs are considered healthy, or in a near-natural state. But each millimetre is a record of everything that happened that year: it holds big data, such as fragments of moth wings or pollen and seeds, and tiny microbe data, such as all the amoeba that dined on the semi-rotting plant material before it got weighed down by water. This allows scientists to take a core sample and tell you what the climate was like 6,000 years ago, which plants grew there, which moths fluttered and which bees buzzed, who crawled over and passed by. There are other buried treasures. The most famous are the bog bodies, including Denmark's iron-age Tollund Man and Ireland's bronze-age Cashel Man, but you can also find hoards of coins, jewellery and weapons, as well as pots and pans, fishing nets, whole canoes, carts and cartwheels and even butter. When our ancestors buried all this, they knew it wouldn't disappear or rot away. It is believed that this is why so much of it is decommissioned, broken and bent, just in case the bog was a portal to another world and the undead might be able to use it when they rose again. Ritually buried bog butter is often found near bog bodies. It represents such a huge amount of milk to a culture only just beginning to farm that if it wasn't a gift to the gods, perhaps it was a gift to the bog itself. The bog certainly represented seasonal abundance for those who knew where to look. It was a source of plant medicines, dyes and fibres. Then there is the rich foraging opportunity: cranberries, bilberries and cowberries, as well as all the meat and eggs from otters, fish and fowl. Not an easy place to get on or off, but useful nevertheless. The reverence our ancestors felt for bogs is a lesson we need to remember. They aren't barren or desolate, although many are certainly remote. They shouldn't be drained or burned to make them productive, nor should they be extracted from. What they need is our respect, because peatlands are the air-conditioning units of the world. Their long-term storage of carbon and filtering of water is helping to keep our climate cool. And no one needs the air-con turned off now. Cors y Llyn near Builth Wells in Powys is a great example of a quaking bog, with strange, stunted ancient Scots pines growing on it. This perfect little bog is surrounded by wonderful orchid meadows (above) and you can nearly always find wild cranberries creeping over the mosses. There is an accessible boardwalk. The Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland is a Unesco world heritage site and perhaps the crown jewel of the UK's peatlands. The biggest blanket bog complex in Europe, it is rich not just in bird life, but also in neolithic structures. Start at the RSPB Forsinard Flows reserve. Swarth Moor is a raised mire next to the village of Helwith Bridge in Ribblesdale. It is home to three nationally scarce species of dragonfly – black darter, common hawker and emerald damselfly. There is well-surfaced bridleway around the southern edge, leading to a viewing platform that gives you a peatland vista without you getting bogged down. The South Pennines is good peat country, with moors galore. Highlights include the moorlands around Gunnerside village, Haworth Moor (above, of Wuthering Heights fame) and Tarn Moss, a raised bog owned by the National Trust. Marches Mosses, a group of lowland raised bogs on the border of Wales and Shropshire, are not without the scars of human intervention – peat cutting, drainage for agriculture, forestry – but still there is a wealth of peatland wildlife, particularly damselflies and dragonflies. There are trails around Bettisfield Moss, Wem Moss and Fenn's and Whixall mosses. Dartmoor in Devon is a vast upland area of peat; much of it is damaged and dominated by purple moor grass, but restoration work is changing this. The visitors centre at Postbridge has Tor Royal Bog, the only raised bog in Devon and Cornwall, while the nearby Fox Tor Mire is a good example of a valley blanket bog. Peatlands by Alys Fowler is out now (Hodder Press, £20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
Globe and Mail
6 days ago
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Bogged down
As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat – the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of 'footing turf,' as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest emitters of planet-warming gases. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Mr. Smyth and others criticize as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. 'The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf... They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland,' Mr. Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people that, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. 'That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them.' When the peat has dried, Mr. Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Mr. Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels 'extravagant fuels,' such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the €800 ($1,250) Mr. Smyth pays for turf for a year. Mr. Smyth nevertheless acknowledges digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. 'They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them,' Mr. Smyth said. Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost more than 70 per cent of its blanket bog and more than 80 per cent of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for 'turbary rights,' allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency last year reported 38 large-scale illegal cutting sites, which it reported to local authorities responsible for preventing breaches of the regulation. The agency also said 350,000 metric tons of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. Pippa Hackett, a former Green Party junior minister for agriculture, who runs a farm near to where Mr. Smyth lives, said progress was too slow. 'I don't think it's likely that we'll see much action between now and the end of this decade,' Ms. Hackett said. Her party's efforts to ensure bogs were restored drew aggression from activists in some turf-cutting areas, she said. 'They see us as their arch enemy,' she added. In an election last year, the party lost nine of the 10 seats it had in parliament and was replaced as the third leg of the centre-right coalition government by a group of mainly rural independent members of parliament. The European Commission, which lists over 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tons in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80 per cent of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with 'rewetting' the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored around 20,000 hectares of its 80,000 hectare target. On many bogs, scientists monitoring emissions have replaced the peat harvesters, while operators of mechanical diggers carve out the most damaged areas to be filled with water. Bord na Mona is also using the land to generate renewable energy, including wind and solar. Mark McCorry, ecology manager at Bord na Mona, said eventually the bogs would resume their status as carbon sinks. 'But we have to be realistic that is going to take a long time,' he said.
Al Jazeera
09-06-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
Photos: Climate action clashes with tradition in Ireland's peat bogs
As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat – the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of 'footing turf', as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest sources of planet-warming gas emissions. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Smyth and others criticise as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. 'The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf … They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland,' Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people who, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. 'That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them.' When the peat has dried, Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels 'extravagant fuels', such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the 800 euros ($906) Smyth pays for turf for a year. Smyth, nevertheless, acknowledges that digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. 'They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them,' Smyth said. Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost more than 70 percent of its blanket bog and over 80 percent of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for 'turbary rights', allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. The agency also said 350,000 tonnes of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. The European Commission, which lists more than 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tonnes in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80 percent of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with 'rewetting' the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored approximately 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) of its 80,000-hectare target.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
On Ireland's peat bogs, climate action clashes with tradition
By Clodagh Kilcoyne and Conor Humphries CLONBULLOGUE, Ireland (Reuters) -As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat - the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of "footing turf," as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest emitters of planet-warming gases. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Smyth and others criticise as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. "The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf... They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland," Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people that, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. "That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them." When the peat has dried, Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels "extravagant fuels," such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the 800 euros ($906) Smyth pays for turf for a year. Smyth nevertheless acknowledges digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. "They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them," Smyth said. INDUSTRIAL HARVESTING AND 'TURBARY RIGHTS' Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost over 70% of its blanket bog and over 80% of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for "turbary rights," allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency last year reported 38 large-scale illegal cutting sites, which it reported to local authorities responsible for preventing breaches of the regulation. The agency also said 350,000 metric tons of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. GREEN VISION Pippa Hackett, a former Green Party junior minister for agriculture, who runs a farm near to where Smyth lives, said progress was too slow. "I don't think it's likely that we'll see much action between now and the end of this decade," Hackett said. Her party's efforts to ensure bogs were restored drew aggression from activists in some turf-cutting areas, she said. "They see us as their arch enemy," she added. In an election last year, the party lost nine of the 10 seats it had in parliament and was replaced as the third leg of the centre-right coalition government by a group of mainly rural independent members of parliament. The European Commission, which lists over 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tons in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80% of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with "rewetting" the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored around 20,000 hectares of its 80,000 hectare target. On many bogs, scientists monitoring emissions have replaced the peat harvesters, while operators of mechanical diggers carve out the most damaged areas to be filled with water. Bord na Mona is also using the land to generate renewable energy, including wind and solar. Mark McCorry, ecology manager at Bord na Mona, said eventually the bogs would resume their status as carbon sinks. "But we have to be realistic that is going to take a long time," he said. ($1 = 0.8828 euros)
Reuters
06-06-2025
- General
- Reuters
On Ireland's peat bogs, climate action clashes with tradition
CLONBULLOGUE, Ireland, June 6 (Reuters) - As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat - the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of "footing turf," as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest emitters of planet-warming gases. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Smyth and others criticise as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. "The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf... They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland," Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people that, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. "That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them." When the peat has dried, Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels "extravagant fuels," such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the 800 euros ($906) Smyth pays for turf for a year. Smyth nevertheless acknowledges digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. "They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them," Smyth said. Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost over 70% of its blanket bog and over 80% of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for "turbary rights," allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency last year reported 38 large-scale illegal cutting sites, which it reported to local authorities responsible for preventing breaches of the regulation. The agency also said 350,000 metric tons of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. Pippa Hackett, a former Green Party junior minister for agriculture, who runs a farm near to where Smyth lives, said progress was too slow. "I don't think it's likely that we'll see much action between now and the end of this decade," Hackett said. Her party's efforts to ensure bogs were restored drew aggression from activists in some turf-cutting areas, she said. "They see us as their arch enemy," she added. In an election last year, the party lost nine of the 10 seats it had in parliament and was replaced as the third leg of the centre-right coalition government by a group of mainly rural independent members of parliament. The European Commission, which lists over 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tons in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80% of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with "rewetting" the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored around 20,000 hectares of its 80,000 hectare target. On many bogs, scientists monitoring emissions have replaced the peat harvesters, while operators of mechanical diggers carve out the most damaged areas to be filled with water. Bord na Mona is also using the land to generate renewable energy, including wind and solar. Mark McCorry, ecology manager at Bord na Mona, said eventually the bogs would resume their status as carbon sinks. "But we have to be realistic that is going to take a long time," he said. ($1 = 0.8828 euros)
