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      Large heath butterfly.

A Wetland Wilderness

       Catherine Farrell

      Hundreds of birds create shadows across the landscape. It’s winter. Curlew, lapwing, whooper swan and a range of other birdlife have flocked to the Lough Boora Discovery Park, in the heart of Ireland, to make use of the wide range of habitats that spread across over 3,000 ha of this Irish Midlands refuge.

      The Boora Bogs have been central to many changes over the course of their history. Up until the early 1900s most of this area of middle Ireland was a rich tapestry of sphagnum-dominated raised bogs, with associated streams, bog woodland, flushes and the odd human settlement in between. A tranquil place, with little or no industry. But those deep and wet bogs were to become the source of the highly-valued peat that fed the Ferbane power station in County Offaly, and the domestic fire places of families across Ireland. To mine the resource, the great bogs were taken on by Bord na Móna (the Irish Turf Board) in the 1930s, working with the local communities who were forging a living in an otherwise bleak time, for the nascent Irish Republic. And so, the wild bog became industrial bog, and habitats and species that had existed there for millennia were pushed to the edges.

      At the time, there was no one to shout ‘stop’. That didn’t come until the late 1970s and 1980s, when the view of the Irish bogs gradually shifted from being one of ‘resource and wasteland’ to ‘wildlife wonderlands and super ecosystems’. The work of ENGOs, such as the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, championed the bogs, and now they are seen more as heritage, than places only worthwhile once drained.

      Now that the use of industrial peat is rapidly coming to an end, the future of the bare, barren, brown peat fields is in sight. The work by the Bord na Móna pioneers at Lough Boora has shown that with targeted and minimal intervention the cutaway bogs can be utterly transformed into a new tapestry, this time with wetlands, such as poor fen, marsh, open water, reedbed and pioneer birch woodland – all precursor habitats of the former great raised bogs. Each of these habitats is of value, and present opportunities for a wealth of species as well as a feast for the eyes and ears. A walk through Ballycon Bog during May will yield vistas of extensive bog cotton with breeding lapwing calling happily amidst a frame of birch woodland. And so, the bogs that had become electricity and heating, and supporting systems for tomato plants, are now the newborn wetland and woodlands mosaic within this rapidly changing landscape.

      Because of the extent of the Bord na Móna lands – in the region of 80,000 ha, or thereabouts – there is room for everything. Local community walkways, targeted management for rare and ‘on the brink’ species like grey partridge, ecotourism, renewables in the shape of wind turbines and solar panels (you must produce electricity somehow!), and the space and solitude for true – what could be called – wilderness.

      My own involvement in these landscapes began in the mid-1990s, when as a research student I was tasked with giving 6,500 ha of Bord na Móna industrial cutaway blanket bog, a helping hand ‘back to nature’. This was in the west of Ireland close to what is now referred to as the Wild Atlantic Way. The approach I took was to observe what happened when the cutaway bog was left to nature’s devices. What I found was that heavily modified landscapes do need a helping hand – especially those bare industrial cutaways of the west. Drain blocking, creating berms to hold water and allowing time for recovery proved to be the best approach. We worked together – nature and I – along with great support from the Mayo bogmen who drove the diggers and excavators, to rewet and rehabilitate the land. When the last drain was blocked, we let go of expectations and left the pockets of bog-moss to grow. And it does, slowly, steadily.

      Next to the Midlands, in the mid-2000s, to basically do the same again, albeit on a grander scale. I began a journey of walking through those far less dramatic and exposed industrial bog units, learning from where peat fields had been taken out of production, and imagining how things would be when the Bord na Móna machines passed through that last time on their rehabilitation run. Where the deeper peat layers are exposed by industrial peat production, fen communities establish with fringes of birch. Where deep peat remains, these are the places where a bit of extra effort can recreate those sphagnum-dominated habitats and true bog formation can be restored.

      Like in Ballydangan Bog in County Roscommon. Here, the Bord na Móna ploughs barely scratched the surface and this allowed the active raised bog to persist while peat harvesting continued in neighbouring bogs. Ballydangan Bog also acted as a space for the extremely rare Irish red grouse to persist, despite its disappearance from the surrounding bogs. The local gun club and wider community have taken charge here, working to control the fiercely unbalanced predator effect and sustain curlew and grouse, thankfully, successfully and promisingly.

      The rehabilitation and restoration work on the Bord na Móna lands today is being coordinated by a small group of ecologists working with a wider team of bog engineers, project managers, surveyors and machine drivers. And, let’s not forget the finance people. But those who drained the bogs – the true bogmen – are critical to the successful post-peat phase. Draining a bog for decades creates an understanding of hydrology, and the fundamentals of ecology. Blocking drains, raising outfalls, turning off pumps – it’s all part of enabling the future.

      The work to date has been truly transformative, with values for carbon, water, people, renewable energy and nature. With barely

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