Fen, Bog & Swamp - Annie Proulx

The subtitle of the book is, "A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis," though the book is not so narrowly focused as that. Proulx does spend time discussing how bogs were dug up over turned over for conversion to agriculture, or how swamps were drained or otherwise dried so they could be "useful." Often at public expense, but for the benefit of a very few who buy up all this new land.

She also describes the ecological differences between fens, bogs and swamps. I have helpfully included a photo I took at the Knoxville Zoo several years ago that provides a definition. What plants and animals dominate those habitats, or find refuge there. This can take the form of pages about the immense amount of life found in one cubic foot of Sphagnum mosses in a bog, or the eventual extinctions of the Bachman's warbler or ivory-billed woodpecker.

But Proulx also spends a lot of pages describing how humans have used these locations, back when they were less destructive towards them. This takes the form of pages and pages about all the various archaeological evidence that's been found in bogs, and the new evidence it provides for the lives of Mesolithic people. It also results in Proulx going into great length talking about the destruction of 3 Roman legions by the Gauls, not in Teutoberg forest, but in a narrow pass along the edge of a bog.

Not that this isn't a cool story, and I guess you could argue it relates to human usage of peatlands, but it feels a tad off-course. As do some of the digressions into the destruction of the rainforest. Again, this relates to climate change, release of great amounts of carbon dioxide, but not really about peatlands themselves.

I suppose I expected to learn more about the ecology of the peatlands, be it fens, mangrove swamps, prairie potholes (which are mentioned in passing.) The section about mangrove swamps and the specific challenges different countries were finding in restoring them was very interesting, for example. But that's not really what the book is, given Proulx spends as much time relating stories from her childhood involving exploring fens or swamps, or quoting the reactions of different writers to those sorts of places, as describing anything biological.

'Bodies were deposited in both fens and bogs. Van der Sanden points out that in fen bodies the soft tissues decompose but the skeleton persists. In bogs the soft tissues are preserved but sphagnan dissolves the bones.'