Must Love Bogs

I'm not affiliated with bogbook. It just seems like an interesting project to me. Others have told me the name is off-putting, hence my initial comment. I'm interested in whether or not that is the cause of the negative reaction here.

eythian• 5 years ago

The downvotes are likely because it's pretty much unrelated to the topic, aside from a coincidence of naming.

teddyh• 5 years ago

‘Bog,’ I said.

‘You may enter.’

— The Cuckoo’s Egg, Clifford Stoll

zeckalpha• 5 years ago

I visited a peat bog yesterday! The sphagnum mats are amazing both visually and olfactorally.

mhh__• 5 years ago

There are some great bogs on Dartmoor. Nothing quite starts you off right at the beginning of a day's walking like immediately getting knee deep in water at 7AM

mrlonglong• 5 years ago

In the UK bog means a loo (or toilet if you prefer) so I was most curious if this was an article about lavatories but it wasn't what I was thinking !

jan_Inkepa2• 5 years ago

In Ireland (and I'd guess in most of Europe) bogs are are artificial landscapes, the result of mass deforestation and overgrazing. I don't see them as warranting any particular preservation. At least in the case of Ireland peatland preservation is just trying to preserve a very particular artefact of the agricultural revolution. Maybe it's different elsewhere... . It's about as worthy a cause to me as a golf-course preservation movement would be (ignoring the carbon-sequesterisation aspect of the argument, which I don't feel like assessing right now).

In the UK there's an lot amount of wildlife 'preservation' effort + money spent on on 'preserving' the landscape as an 18th century agricultural-industry idyll (including making sure that the actually indigenous flora+fauna doesn't get out of hand) rather than actually returning it to a more sustainable wilderness. George Monbiot has a big bit on this with his re-wilding schtick - https://www.monbiot.com/2013/05/27/a-manifesto-for-rewilding... .

mindracer• 5 years ago

as I understand blanket bogs are formed as the result of human activities, raised bogs are a naturally formed

chunkyfunky• 5 years ago

If you look at the map on this page: http://raisedbogs.ie/what-is-a-raised-bog/ you will see how much of Ireland had quite a few natural - and very old - raised bogs up until the 1800s. And we've lost many of them forever in the last half a century or so. Agriculture & commercial scale peat harvesting is unfortunately directly responsible for the destruction of most of our raised bogs (as well as the near total collapse of many of our trout and salmon fisheries).

jan_Inkepa2• 5 years ago

interesting, thanks!

cromulent• 5 years ago

A great podcast about peat bogs:

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/for-the-love-of-peat/

SyzygistSix• 5 years ago

"to move away from the perception of peatlands as “wastelands,” “spaces of nothingness,” and into a new understanding of their value."

People who are unfamiliar with wilderness do the same with deserts. I hear people refer to them as places where there is nothing. People unfamiliar with wilderness tend to think of nature as trees and animals, and park-like areas.

It's the areas that are inhospitable to humans that especially need protecting, as they are generally seen as useless.

mikestew• 5 years ago

On more than one occasion, in discussion of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the question has come up "ever been there? There's nothing out there!" Umm, as a matter of fact, I have been there. And you're full of shit, Person Who Has Never Been North of the 49th Parallel. I guess if one can't drive an SUV to a paved overlook, what good is it, eh?

whall6• 5 years ago

Too much de-bogging huh?

Must Love Bogs

Related Stories