The Irish peat extraction agency Bord na Móna once explained to me: “We are a development agency, not a conservation organisation.” I had bemoaned the destruction of bogland ecosystems across the country through the use of huge extraction machinery and the indiscriminate removal of woodlands and ground cover.
Much of the degraded peat was used for gardens and peat briquettes. Forestry, intensified agriculture and reclamation had further reduced the area of bog, while latterly, scientists are warning that climate change could further deplete these vast carbon sinks.
I have also long espoused the notion that bogs could never be restored in my lifetime, and so on visiting the Abbeyleix Bog Project in County Laois, I was delighted to be proved wrong. The site has been managed by local people since 2009 after a 50-year lease was secured from Bord na Móna, whose mantra is now a more enlightened: “Rethink, Renew, Restore.”
Since that time, 500 acres (including 100 acres of degraded bog once drained) has been rewetted by the creation of a few hundred dams, and a 2020 survey showed that Abbeyleix’s area of “improving” bog habitat here has increased by 1,130%.
It was heartening to see the results with my own eyes. As I walked along the old Waterford railway line that leads into the heart of the bog, new life was beating loudly, with bog rosemary, black darter dragonflies, sundews and a young cuckoo being waited on by attendant meadow pipits.
In the same trip to Ireland, I visited a few of its blanket bogs, which are expansive and typically found on the rugged areas of Ireland’s western seaboard (Galway, Mayo and Donegal). They harbour a rich array of wildlife, from red squirrels to curlews to woodcock. But Abbeyleix is a raised bog, which tends to be relatively more accessible than blanket bogs, making them more vulnerable to destructive practices. So every sign of life here is precious.
As I step away from the path to smell a sprig of bog rosemary, my size 12s were immediately submerged – a great sign – but then, the crown jewels: pine marten scats. Proof positive that this bog is on its way back.
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