The Forest Industry Wasn't Seeing It That Way

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The flo cantry is a wetland habitat that has been under appreciated for centuries. Scientists discovered the secrets of this delicate landscape while forestry companies were tearing it up. They ploughed up bogs, drained out all that water and planted non native, quick growing conifers. Pretty soon, little patches of evergreen forest were sprouting up across floe country.

A few years back, 99pi producer Emmett FitzGerald brought us a beautiful story about peat bogs. Peat is essential for biodiversity and for the climate – it is really, really good at storing carbon. But like a lot of things we cover on the show, peat often goes unnoticed, in part because it is literally out of sight underground. We’ve noticed peat and carbon sequestration more and more in the news lately. Journalists have been brilliantly covering stories about the tree planting movement, private ownership of Scotland’s bogs, and the threat to peat in the Congo Basin. Couple that with more extreme weather happening in more places, we thought it would be a good idea to repeat this story.

For the Love of Peat