Bog on!

Stuart Benn, Conservation Manager, tells us about a project to restore peatlands in the Flow country.

Bog on!

Bogs haven’t always enjoyed the best press. 

Phrases like bogged down, bog standard and bog off really just reflect how we’ve treated them in the past  – the home of brigands, monsters and disease, wastelands only fit for drainage and planting up with foreign trees.

But attitudes are changing – increasingly, we see that bogs are brilliant for wildlife, inspiring places of big skies and twinkling stars, and safehouses for vast amounts of carbon that does us a lot more good locked up underground than it would swirling about in the atmosphere. 

And bogs don’t come much bigger than those of the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland in the far north of Scotland – so spacious that you could fit Greater London into them and still leave room for a squelchy border.  If you want a big bog with big benefits then look no further.

And those benefits are about to get even greater thanks to the Flow to the Future project being run by the Peatland Partnership - they have ambitious plans.   Damaged areas will be restored; researchers will learn more about how the bogs contribute in the fight against climate change; staff will work with local schools and local communities in all kinds of imaginative ways; visitors of all abilities will have opportunities to experience the bogs that they’ve never had before and, through the virtual world, the bogs will be brought to those who can’t visit.

Good news for the bogs, good news for the Flow Country, good news for the planet.  And good news for the local economy too.  

Keep an eye out as the plans unfold and take shape - this bog is on a roll!

Find out more about our Forsinard Flows reserve here: https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/f/forsinard/