In recent decades, much of the peat extraction in Ireland has been done commercially by machines, for use in electricity power plants and horticulture. For domestic use the majority of turf is now also machine-cut, however there is often manual labour involved as older and younger generations alike help with drying and collecting the turf. As a country without its own oil, a limited supply of gas and almost no coal, turf has been an important fuel for Ireland, providing the island nation with some energy self-sufficiency.
Many families still have an area of bog, often passed down through generations, from which they can harvest enough fuel to see them through the year. The move away from peat as a source of fuel is happening faster than expected as Ireland moves toward renewable energy Credit: Paula Nolan.
Though the practice of cutting turf is centuries if not thousands of years old, and still takes place in several countries, there is growing recognition that burning it for fuel is not sustainable.
Peat is a highly carbon-inefficient fuel, more so even than coal. As Ireland tries to rapidly abandon peat , the people that depend on the fuel are facing an uncertain future, and the need to find new uses for the land that has for decades been given over to cutting turf. Eoin is one of a group of secondary school students in the village of Ferbane who took part in two climate strikes in The tension between a reliance on turf and the need to reduce carbon emissions is not lost on him or his fellow climate-strikers.
When I meet them, they are gathered in a socially distanced group in a classroom with their environmental and social studies teacher, Aoibhinn Molloy-Roche. She has ensured learning about bogs is part of their school experience, including a trip to a local preserved raised bog. One of the group, year-old Liadh, is the daughter of farmers. Turf has been a very significant part of the economy of this region for over 70 years. However commercial turf-cutting now has to stop, and fast, if the country is to comply with its international obligations on carbon emissions and habitats.
The country emits 13 tonnes of greenhouse gases per person each year , the third-highest in the European Union.
Agriculture, transport and the burning of fossil fuels are the main contributors in Ireland, and turf is part of the problem.
Many commercial peat bogs are being retired in Ireland, and faster than expected Credit: Paula Nolan. British Isles. Fossil fuels formed from the remains of ancient plants and animals. Tierra del Fuego.
Media Credits The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit.
Media If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. Text Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.
Interactives Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. Related Resources.
Distribution of Natural Resources. View Collection. View Article. Blanket Bog. View Photograph. Bog Excavation. Educational Resources in Your Inbox. Educational Resources in Your Inbox Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students.
It is best developed in the Central ecotope. An acrotelm is very sensitive to drainage and fire and it is absent in the facebank ecotope where, for example, turf is cut. Raised bogs are beautiful landscapes with a unique biodiversity. They provide mankind with services that are worth billions of euro that may be easily jeopardised by inappropriate or short-sighted exploitation.
Raised bogs are:. The assessments carried out in and in found that no peatland type of priority importance in Ireland is in good conservation status. Raised bogs have been given a BAD status in these reports because of a significant decrease in their range, habitat structure, habitat function and area.
The original extent of raised bog in the Republic of Ireland was ,ha according to the Peatland Map of Ireland drawn by Hammond in IPCC monitors the status of the resource on an on going basis. Developmental pressures on raised bogs are intense, particularly extraction for fuel and horticulture mainly due to the development of new markets for these products and the establishment of numerous peat producing businesses.
Major field surveys have been undertaken so that the raised bogs of conservation importance could be identified from to the present day. Initially sites were designated as Areas of Scientific Interest.
Ireland must protect, manage and restore these sites to ensure they achieve their objective of conserving raised bog habitats and species. Most sites were designated without adequate consultation with the tens of thousands of landowners who retained their right to cut turf in these sites. Rather than acquiring control of turf cutting areas within raised bogs to create manageable hydrological units, the Government put in place a derogation which essentially allowed turf cutting to continue on sites of conservation importance for a minimum period of 10 years.
During this period a limited number of turf cutting rights were acquired from landowners on sites, however, in the case of most sites not all turf cutting rights were acquired. Once the deadline for the cessation of turf cutting was reached, landowners who retained turf cutting rights refused to stop cutting turf. In parallel with the public unrest in relation to raised bog conservation within the country, the European Union took a number of cases against Ireland for infringements of EU law.
The Court of Justice of the European Union have threatened to fine the country for their lack of compliance. Against this background, in , the Irish Government launched a study to provide a scientific basis for raised bog conservation in Ireland.
The study is expected to be completed in These went out to public consultation in Several key decisions in relation to the conservation and management of raised bogs are contained within these documents:. Kildare R51 V Heavy rainfall caused minerals such as iron to be washed out or leached from the surface layers of the soil, a process know as paludifacation.
These were deposited lower down where they formed an impermeable layer known as an iron pan. Water cannot move down through such a layer and the soil surface became waterlogged as a result. Under these conditions the accumulation and spread of peat was made possible. Atlantic Blanket Bogs are found in low-lying coastal plains and valleys in mountainous areas of western counties, below m O.
Mountain Blanket Bogs occur on relatively flat terrain in the higher Irish mountains above m O. Atlantic blanket bogs and mountain blanket bogs are the most extensive of the Irish peatland types and originally covered an area of ,ha. Blanket bog occurs on flat or sloping land with poor surface drainage, in cool, wet, oceanic climates. Moore et al. If the climate is sufficiently cool and wet, basins, plateaux and gentle slopes come to be swamped by peat, formed from acid vegetation.
Peatland formed by the terrestrialisation of basins or the paludification of plateau and gentle slopes at different places in the same landscape, eventually coalesce to form a blanket bog complex. Therefore blanket bogs are complexes which combine several congruent and hydrologically inter-related peatland sites into a continuous peatland system.
Within the complex, the underlying peat varies considerably in depth and humification, according especially to the angle of the slope and the degree of waterlogging. Morphologically the blanket bog peat body is diplotelmic in profile as in raised bogs. It is divided into two distinctive hydrological layers, the acrotelm and the catotelm. Blanket bogs are valuable wetlands, not wastelands. There are a number of scientific, economic, cultural and moral reasons for conserving blanket bogs.
0コメント