Well it's goodbye from Kirsty...

After 6 months of working at Forsinard as our Information Assistant we have had to bid farewell to Kirsty.  She has been a wonderful asset to the team at Forsinard, engaging with visitors and school groups and we will greatly miss her as she heads south to study for her masters. I asked Kirsty to write one final parting blog so...enjoy...!

Kirsty in the Visitor Centre at Forsinard

I have had the pleasure of working at Forsinard Flows as Information Assistant for six months now and my time here is coming to an end (sorry to sound so dramatic). I am sad to be leaving as this has been such a wonderful experience in many ways. I have gained knowledge, friends and a newfound respect for bogs. So what is so brilliant about bogs? To explain this I need to give you some background information.

Peat bogs form in areas where a layer of peat accumulates naturally and to do this it needs to be kept wet. Wet you say? Sounds lovely! Peat is formed from waterlogged, carbon rich material that is resistant to decomposition. Sphagnum moss, or bog moss, is the perfect material for this as it can hold up to eight times its own weight in water and resists decay since it is so acidic (bacteria and fungi are unable to grow on it). It is for these reasons that soldiers used to use sphagnum to dress wounds. I can also assure you that it works very well as a sponge when trying to soak up spills! Being waterlogged is a vital part of peat formation as it keeps oxygen out of the process. It is in anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions that peat forms. When peat is exposed to oxygen, the carbon that is stored bonds with the oxygen to form carbon dioxide – a major greenhouse gas. About 10% of the UK is bog and this accounts for 13% of the world’s resource of this habitat. So what does this mean? It stores more carbon than our forestry and woodland combined and is therefore our most important terrestrial carbon store. The bog habitat of the RSPB Forsinard Flows reserve alone is estimated to hold roughly 28 million tonnes of carbon. Peat bog as a carbon store is arguably one of the most important functions of bogs for humans and is why we shouldn’t mind that bogs are wet – they really need to be to function properly!

The anaerobic conditions in peat bogs have another very interesting effect – they allow very little decay and so can perfectly preserve things that are buried in the peat. Ever heard of a bog body? There have been several bodies found in bogs that have skin, hair and organs (complete with last meals!) intact after thousands of years and we can learn all sorts of useful things about past climate, vegetation and land use because of the things we find in peat.

So bogs are incredibly important for the world’s climate and can act as windows into the past. But the benefits don’t stop there. Bogs support rare and distinctive wildlife including the carnivorous sundew, beautiful bog bean, too many invertebrates to name and then there are the breeding birds... Is it just me or would the whistling call of the Golden Plover and the eerie drumming of Snipe (amongst many others) be sorely missed if they stopped coming to our bogs to breed?

Then there is the amenity value of bogs. A healthy bog is a high quality water source and is therefore cheaper to treat for drinking. It also slows water run-off since excess water can be absorbed by sphagnum (as mentioned before... a natural sponge) and by peat. Because of this, bogs can reduce flood peaks. However, this is not the case with unhealthy bogs. If a bog has been damaged, treating drinking water becomes far more expensive and the bog then becomes a bit of a liability. And I can tell you from personal experience, an unhealthy bog does not do much in the way of preventing floods! A damaged bog will also ‘leak’ carbon dioxide. It is estimated that 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are released from the UK’s damaged bogs alone.

Bogs become ‘unhealthy’ for a number of reasons. First of all, blanket bog is sensitive to the simplest of things because all that stops the carbon stored in the peat from escaping into the atmosphere is a delicate layer of moss. So you can imagine that over-grazing, fires and over-use of footpaths can be an issue. People have planted trees on bogs and this dries them out and brings about changes to the wildlife we can find there. We have also cut drainage ditches to improve grazing and this obviously dries out bogs too. One of the better known uses for bog is peat cutting – peat can be used as a fuel and in compost (because of its ability to hold water) and by removing peat we release greenhouse gases and destroy the plant community that would have been growing in the layer above the peat.

Would you like to know what we can do to preserve and restore our bogs? Something simple that everybody can do is to use compost that does not use peat. At Forsinard Flows, we are removing forestry plantations and blocking drainage ditches in order to re-wet the bog, and allowing the sphagnum moss to return along with everything that goes with it. To find out how you can help us save this amazing place visit www.rspb.org.uk/supporting/campaigns/flowcountry

If there is one thing I will take away from my time at Forsinard is that I have realised that there is still hope for nature to be restored, and I hope you all feel the same way.