Massive tracts of bog `must be restored when peat extracted'

Massive tracts of cutaway bog in Ireland will need to carefully restored after peat extraction ends in the period up to 2030. This is to ensure survival of what were once the country's most important wilderness areas, according to Dr John Feehan, a leading authority on peatlands.

The removal of the larger raised bogs by Bord na Mona activities will create 100,000 hectares of cutaway bog within about 30 years, said Dr Feehan, of UCD Department of Environmental Resource Management.

"Its subsequent development will be one of the great reclamation ventures of Europe, comparable in scale to that of the English fenlands or the polders of Holland," he predicted.

With the "loss of wilderness" and shrinking of the internationally important raised-bog ecosystem since mechanical peat extraction began in 1934, it might seem that the ecological outlook for the midlands raised bogs was a bleak one, he said.

But bogs, including cutaway bogland where extraction had taken place, had remarkable regenerative properties, he told the International Association of Limnology conference yesterday.

While many were anticipating large tracts of land becoming available for forestry and agriculture, he believed "nature should be allowed to take its head in such situations".

In any event, many areas would be below the water table and unsuitable for development.

Cutaway bog left to its own devices undergoes rapid colonisation by plants and other species. It evolves ecologically in several directions, often generating "very species-rich, diverse habitats of great conservation value".

But research, it is hoped, will indicate how to steer the succession in the right direction.

Part of the price paid for the economic boost given to the economies of the midlands by the exploitation of the raised bogs was the loss of the country's last great area of wilderness, he said.

"But here we have an unparalleled opportunity to develop, to allow develop, a new wilderness of heath, fen, natural grassland and lakes . . . a network of nodes and corridors of wild land."

Scientific experts, particularly limnologists who study freshwater aquatic environments, would have to provide insight on how to progress this.

Fortunately, it was coinciding with increasing awareness of the values which natural areas represented to human life, other than their economic potential in the simple monetary sense.

Strategic plans would be necessary for each peatland area to establish in outline what the shape and composition of the future cutaway landscape was going to be. Similarly, Bord na Mona would have responsibility for areas under its control.

It should produce a plan for the peatlands about to be developed for its new power station, Europeat, and for the bog at Killaun-Ballywilliam, Co Offaly. On the issue of looking for alternative energy sources in Ireland, Dr Feehan said the options were limited.

After the very extensive bogs of the midlands had gone within 40 years, smaller bogs would probably last for another 40 years.

There should be a statutory requirement that all bogs undergoing industrial development be subject to such planning, and all bog exploitation be subject to environmental impact assessment (EIA), he told the conference in UCD.

Asked if he had any concerns about the extraction of one million tonnes of peat a year to supply the Europeat plant and about its potential effect on the Barrow catchment, he said a most extensive EIA was being compiled on the development.