Latest news with #peat
BreakingNews.ie
a day ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Man refusing to stop extracting peat has no trespass sign with '€100,000 charge'
A sign with the signature of a man who says he will not comply with orders to stop extracting peat from a Co Laois bog has been erected saying that anyone who "trespasses" on the land will be charged "€100,000 per minute", the High Court heard. Liam Gorman, Silverwood, Mountmellick, Co Laois, has been repeatedly ordered by the court not to trespass on the 400 acre Garryowen Bog, Tinnahinch, which owned Bord na Mona Biomass (BnMB) Ltd. Advertisement The court has now found BnMB is the owner and that it is Mr Gorman who is trespassing. Mr Gorman has claimed his family owned some of the land for generations and that it had been abandoned by Bord na Mona. He claims he was now living in a caravan on part of it and disputed that BnMB owns it. He said he was extracting peat to sell to farmers as bedding for cattle. He also, at one point, disputed the jurisdiction of the courts and specifically claimed that the High Court was 'legally non-existent' Advertisement BnMB last month applied to the court to have him jailed for contempt for repeatedly failing to obey orders to stop extracting and to remove large machinery and a number of men he has working for him from the lands. That application was adjourned to allow for a hearing of what Mr Gorman claimed were his assertions of ownership over two particular plots of land and to put in a counterclaim against the BnMB case. The matter came on for hearing this month before Mr Justice Oisín Quinn over two days, on both of which Mr Gorman, who represented himself, walked out of the hearing accompanied by a number of individuals. The court heard a sign, signed by Mr Gorman, had been erected on the bog stating: 'Warning Notice – No Trespass' and 'Common Law Jurisdiction Applies Exclusively' and 'There will be a charge of €100,000.00 per minute per man, woman, or corporation and for any incursion what so ever'. Advertisement In a judgment, Mr Justice Quinn found Mr Gorman was trespassing and that all but a small triangle of the land was owned by BnMB. The judge said that on the first day of the hearing, he refused Mr Gorman an adjournment to get legal advice after the court heard he had twice discharged firms of solicitors since the case began more than a year ago. He claimed he also wanted to employ a forensic investigator but did not elaborate on why or why he needed new solicitors. He left the court, after again trying to challenge the court's jurisdiction, and did not wait to hear the evidence. Advertisement The judge said he returned the next day and repeated his complaints made earlier as well as suggesting he had "adverse possession" (squatters rights) of the land. He repeated he would continue to extract peat no matter what happened in court and left again. In his decision, Mr Justice Quinn said he was satisfied BnMB is the owner of the lands with the exception of a small triangle which was unregistered but may be partly owned by an unrelated company, He has been unlawfully using some type of access road and has unlawfully carried out works such as peat extraction from the lands and from one plot in particular., the judge said. He has wrongly placed a caravan on that particular plot and has engaged in peat extraction from the lands, he said. Drone images were shown indicating the use of substantial machinery operating on the bog land in the area of this plot. Advertisement Mr. Gorman had told the court he had returned to the land in April 2025 having 'discharged' himself as far as he was concerned from the obligations to comply with the orders made in the case, he said. He was satisfied Mr Gorman intended to continue trespassing. World Champion Irish jockey (29) charged with drink driv... Read More The judge made orders restraining Mr Gorman, and all having notice of the orders, from trespassing or interfering with BnMB's use or exercise of its rights over the lands. He also said Mr Gorman was prohibited from bringing any machinery or other equipment on to the lands and from extracting peat. The judge said there will be no award of damages against him as BnMB decided not to adduce any evidence in support of a damages claim. As Mr Gorman did not meaningfully participate in the hearing and called no evidence his counterclaim was dismissed.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
‘€100k a minute, no trespassing' sign put up on land at centre of row over unlawful peat extraction
A sign with the signature of a man who has said he will not comply with orders to stop extracting peat from a Co Laois bog has been erected saying anyone who 'trespasses' on the land will be charged '€100,000 per minute', the High Court has heard. Liam Gorman, Silverwood, Mountmellick, Co Laois, has been repeatedly ordered by the court not to trespass on the 400-acre Garryowen Bog in Tinnahinch, owned by Bord na Móna Biomass (BnMB) Ltd. The court has found BnMB is the owner and it is Mr Gorman who is trespassing. Mr Gorman has claimed his family owned some of the land for generations and that it had been abandoned by Bord na Móna. He claimed he was now living in a caravan on part of it and disputed the BnMB ownership. READ MORE He said he was extracting peat to sell to farmers as bedding for cattle. At one point, he disputed the jurisdiction of the courts and specifically claimed the High Court was 'legally non-existent'. BnMB last month applied to the court to have him jailed for contempt for repeatedly failing to obey orders to stop extracting peat and to remove large machinery, and a number of men working for him, from the land. That application was adjourned to allow for a hearing of what Mr Gorman claimed were his assertions of ownership over two particular plots of land and to put in a counterclaim against the BnMB case. The matter came for hearing this month before Mr Justice Oisín Quinn over two days, on both of which Mr Gorman, who represented himself, walked out of the hearing accompanied by a number of individuals. The court heard a notice , signed by Mr Gorman, had been erected on the bog stating: 'Warning Notice – No Trespass' and 'Common Law Jurisdiction Applies Exclusively'. 'There will be a charge of €100,000.00 per minute per man, woman, or corporation and for any incursion what so ever', it said. In a judgment, Mr Justice Quinn found Mr Gorman was trespassing and said all but a small triangle of the land was owned by BnMB. The judge said that on the first day of the hearing he refused Mr Gorman an adjournment to get legal advice after the court heard he had twice discharged firms of solicitors since the case began more than a year ago. Mr Gorman claimed he also wanted to employ a forensic investigator, but did not elaborate on why or why he needed new solicitors. He left the court, after again trying to challenge its jurisdiction, and did not wait to hear the evidence. The judge said Mr Gorman returned the next day and repeated his complaints as well as suggesting he had 'adverse possession', commonly known as squatter's rights, of the land. He repeated he would continue to extract peat no matter what happened in court and left again. In his decision, Mr Justice Quinn said he was satisfied BnMB was the owner of the lands with the exception of a small triangle which was unregistered, but which may be partly owned by an unrelated company. Mr Gorman had been unlawfully using some type of access road and had unlawfully carried out works such as peat extraction from the land and from one plot in particular, the judge said. He had wrongly placed a caravan on that particular plot, the judge said. Drone images indicated the use of substantial machinery. Mr Gorman had told the court he had returned to the land last April, having 'discharged' himself from the obligations to comply with the orders made in the case, he said. The judge was satisfied Mr Gorman intended to continue trespassing. Mr Justice Quinn made orders restraining Mr Gorman, and all having notice of the orders, from trespassing or interfering with BnMB's use or exercise of its rights over the lands. He also said Mr Gorman was prohibited from bringing any machinery or other equipment on to the lands and from extracting peat.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Illegal peat harvesting is still taking place on a large scale, EPA report finds
Illegal commercial extraction of peat on a large scale continues to be widespread in Ireland, with a flourishing export trade worth €40 million a year, an EPA investigation has found. A total of 38 large-scale operations are engaged in illegal peat extraction in a sector that 'does not operate within planning or environmental laws', the report, published on Wednesday, concludes. 'Local authority enforcement performance in this area is patently inadequate,' it finds. The EPA has investigated 38 sites across seven counties – Offaly, Kildare, Laois, Westmeath, Roscommon, Longford and Sligo – where large-scale commercial peat extraction is being carried out without any of the necessary authorisations from local authorities. READ MORE The worst county was Westmeath, with eight illegal sites, followed by Tipperary and Roscommon with six each. [ Ireland worst in world for wetlands depletion over past 3 centuries, global study finds Opens in new window ] These illegal operations are contributing to an export trade of 300,000 tonnes of peat annually, valued at almost €40 million, the report says. The EPA has carried out 170 enforcement inspections between 2021 and 2024, including legal actions at District Court and High Court level against operations on areas greater than 50 hectares. These actions have resulted in cessation of illegal extractions on several peatlands, while a number of actions remain live before the courts. The products being extracted are milled peat used as compost and large sod peat – used in horticulture – as well as 'wet peat extracts' used in mushroom production. Dr Tom Ryan, director of the EPA Office of Environmental Enforcement, said: 'Operators engaged in unauthorised peat harvesting activities are in flagrant violation of environmental law. They are destroying our precious natural environments, and this needs to stop.' 'The environmental damage caused by large-scale peat extraction operating outside regulatory control is catastrophic for the environment,' Dr Ryan said. 'It results in destruction of vital ecosystems for biodiversity, loss of important carbon sinks ... and decimation of an irreplaceable cultural and scientific amenity and resource.' Peat extraction is subject to several legal restrictions in Ireland, and many sites have not received the required permissions. Photograph: EPA Bord na Móna was an excellent example of appropriate engagement with environmental regulations working, he said, including compliance with EPA licensing requirements, minimising of negative environmental impacts of peat harvesting, and securing of the rehabilitation of harvested peatlands. Local authorities have primary responsibility for regulating all commercial peat extraction. The EPA said it will continue to use its powers to ensure local authorities fully implement and enforce environmental requirements. The report notes appropriate regulation of peat harvesting can provide important protections for the environment. Bord na Móna had lawfully operated nine different peatland complexes across 11 counties under EPA licence until 2020, when these operations ceased. In accordance with their licence conditions and with support of the Peatlands Climate Action Scheme, Bord na Móna is engaged in rehabilitation of those peatlands, with almost 19,000 hectares rehabilitated by the end of 2024, 'bringing them back to life, allowing nature to take its course and the peatlands to flourish again', the report states. [ Turf cutters warn of confrontational scenes after EU Commission move Opens in new window ] The EPA has gathered evidence of expensive machinery, complex drainage systems, extensive rows and stacks of cut peat and, in some cases, large warehouses on sites. Large-scale commercial peat extraction can only take place if it is granted planning permission. In some cases, an EPA licence is also required. For peat extraction from on an area greater than 50Ha, extraction needs an EPA integrated pollution control licence as well as planning permission and an environmental impact assessment (EIA). There is a ban on the commercial sale of peat for solid fuel heating and restriction of peat-cutting for other purposes, such as horticulture. Environmental groups have highlighted that very few, if any, plots have the required permits or would be eligible for them because they would fail at the EIA stage. Peat extraction was targeted for phase-out on environmental and public health grounds, as turf-burning causes air pollution and bog-stripping undermines the natural environment.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
‘It takes 25 years for a footprint to disappear' – the secret, beguiling magic of Britain's bogs
I haven't found an hour when I don't love a bog. Recently, after a night of counting rare caterpillars in Borth in Mid Wales (they come out only after dark), walking back to the car under the glow of a flower moon, I wondered if 2am was my new favourite. I felt very safe, held by the bog's softness, and everyone that was out at that hour seemed to have a sense of humour. I met a nightjar hopping around on the ground, pretending, I think, to be a frog. But there is also something about the humidity of a languid afternoon on a bog, when everything slows and fat bumbles hum, that is surprisingly good. I have done freezing horizontal rain and thick, cold-to-your-bones fog and wind so howling that I couldn't think. All of those were hard, but I did come away feeling truly alive. I have travelled to the tip of Scotland and far beyond to visit bogs. In all the hours, days and weeks I have spent on them, I have learned that time behaves differently. It stretches out like the bog landscape, seeming to still the world beyond. There is something very special about that. Like many of us, I came to know bogs not by visiting one, but by ripping open a bag of compost and plunging my hands into the soft, dark peat. Then I learned that there was more to peat than an amiable bed in which to coax a plant to grow. It is ripped from a living, breathing entity with complex ways and wants. We sneer at bogs, we tease them and drain them, scrape at them and pillage them, but give them back their waters and they care not just for the creatures that live on them, but those much further afield. There is more carbon stored in peatlands than in all the above-ground vegetation in the world. They account for 3% of landmass, but hold at least 30% of soil carbon. Seventy per cent of the UK's drinking water starts its journey on peatlands, where the bogs not only filter but also slow water, helping to mitigate flooding. This is why draining, extracting and turning peat into agricultural land has consequences. Roughly 80% of the UK's peatlands are damaged, polluting our water, exacerbating flooding and increasing the risk of fires. But this knowledge doesn't stop us using extracted peat. Sure, I don't buy peat compost, but I have eaten fresh cultivated mushrooms (most large-scale growing is done in peat), bought supermarket basil (usually peat-grown), 'saved' numerous discounted houseplants (only about 11% of houseplants are truly grown peat-free) and eaten lettuce, celery, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans and tomatoes, some of which are grown in the UK on drained peat, as well as crisps, biscuits, cakes and chips made with palm oil grown on drained peatlands in south-east Asia. Most of us are complicit in damaging, extracting and wasting peat, despite years of writing, campaigning, shouting and imploring. I decided I would get to know the bogs, to learn their ways and stories and see if a different song might stir the soul. Bogs are magical in many ways. These ancient beings are much more than their brown flatness suggests from a distance. Below the surface, they seduce water with their engineering. Under every bog is a sea held in suspension, so when you walk over a bog you are truly walking on water. It is why they wobble when you jump up and down on them. They are nature's answer to a water bed. Don't jump, though – they are fragile places. It takes an average of 25 years for a footprint to disappear. What is a bog? Well, there are many types of peatlands, but broadly speaking peat is either fen or – more frequently – bog. A fen is alkali: it gets its water from a ground or surface source and is flushed with minerals because of it. A bog is acid: it is fed entirely by the sky, which means it is very poor in nutrients. Bogs form in wet places, where the humidity and rainfall are high and evapotranspiration (the combined process where water moves from land to air) is low. Many of them start life as a depression, a hollow or a dip in the land that starts to fill with water. The rock below is hard, often impervious, such as granite, and the water pools. As the climate and world around it change, things begin to grow around the bog: plants spring up, die, fall in the water. The dip starts to fill with rotting organic matter, creating oxygen-poor, acidic conditions. Most things don't want to grow in waters that are turning acidic, but mosses don't mind; in fact, they thrive. This is particularly true of bog mosses, which are from the genus Sphagnum. The mosses creep in, the rain continues to fall and the bog is born, made up of plants, mostly mosses, some rushes and a few shrubs, living and dying, but not completely rotting. This is what peat is: partially decomposed organic matter. When it is wet, it is happy; when it is drained of water, it starts rotting again. A similar process happens with fens. But whereas peat is extracted from bogs to be used for compost, most of our lowland fens have been drained for agriculture. That flush of minerals from the groundwater makes them fertile places, once drained. Peat in the northern hemisphere is mostly made up of mosses. They call the shots; they are the ecosystem engineers. These tiny, centimetre-high plants are alchemists, taking only what falls from the sky and creating a kind of immortality for themselves as they strive to be dead and alive at the same time. They do this by pickling themselves and everything that falls into the bog in acid, which means nothing entirely rots away. The bog mosses' pickle juice also prevents bigger plants from doing too well and shading out the moss. The mosses do this in such style, too. They don't stick to the run-of-the-mill green – they come in every jewel tone imaginable: golds and oranges, neon-green emeralds, lobster pinks and deep wine reds, in russets and chestnut browns, their colours turning with the seasons, deepening across the summer. What appears flat from a distance up close rises and falls in miniature mountains of hummock-type mosses, with valleys, pools and lawns of looser types. The things that live on and in this world have run with this otherworldly theme. There are the giants: bog bush-crickets with their huge antennae; emperor moths with their peacock-like eyespots on their wings; darters, damselflies and dragonflies of all colours that often come to peer at you curiously if you sit for a while. This is to say nothing of the green-eyed horseflies, which are a terrifying size, although it is hard to not be beguiled by their giant emerald eyes. There are frogs, toads, lizards, snakes and so many spiders, including one of Britain's largest, the raft spider. Spend long enough at a bog pool and you might spot one floating, waiting for the vibrations of prey, only to run across the surface of the water and pounce. They go for prey as large as tadpoles, but if you frighten them, they dive and swim underwater. Imagine that – a swimming spider! These are just the easy-to-spot guys. There is an abundance of tiny insects: pseudoscorpions, gnats, midges (not all of which bite), strange-looking larvae and tiny micromoths that flit about. These bring an abundance of other wings. Peatlands are hugely important habitats for birds: hen harriers, golden and white-tipped eagles, merlins, owls, jack snipes, golden plovers, curlews, lapwings, pipits, snow buntings, grouse, dunlins, redshanks and, at coastal edges, strange-looking ducks. A chorus of beings in full song for those intrepid enough to venture in. For that is the thing about bogs: they are not hugely interested in wowing you. The mountains have good views and the forest has majesty; the sand dunes sculpture and the wildflower meadow an easy romance. But the bog is quite happy to be passed over – it will share its best secrets only with those who carefully tiptoe in and are patient enough to wait a while to see what comes out once they have settled down. The bog has other secrets, too: underneath this living layer, preserved in all that peat, is an archive of our past doings. A healthy bog grows just a millimetre a year, which puts in context anyone who tries to argue that cutting peat is sustainable. It is important to remember that less than 13% of our bogs are considered healthy, or in a near-natural state. But each millimetre is a record of everything that happened that year: it holds big data, such as fragments of moth wings or pollen and seeds, and tiny microbe data, such as all the amoeba that dined on the semi-rotting plant material before it got weighed down by water. This allows scientists to take a core sample and tell you what the climate was like 6,000 years ago, which plants grew there, which moths fluttered and which bees buzzed, who crawled over and passed by. There are other buried treasures. The most famous are the bog bodies, including Denmark's iron-age Tollund Man and Ireland's bronze-age Cashel Man, but you can also find hoards of coins, jewellery and weapons, as well as pots and pans, fishing nets, whole canoes, carts and cartwheels and even butter. When our ancestors buried all this, they knew it wouldn't disappear or rot away. It is believed that this is why so much of it is decommissioned, broken and bent, just in case the bog was a portal to another world and the undead might be able to use it when they rose again. Ritually buried bog butter is often found near bog bodies. It represents such a huge amount of milk to a culture only just beginning to farm that if it wasn't a gift to the gods, perhaps it was a gift to the bog itself. The bog certainly represented seasonal abundance for those who knew where to look. It was a source of plant medicines, dyes and fibres. Then there is the rich foraging opportunity: cranberries, bilberries and cowberries, as well as all the meat and eggs from otters, fish and fowl. Not an easy place to get on or off, but useful nevertheless. The reverence our ancestors felt for bogs is a lesson we need to remember. They aren't barren or desolate, although many are certainly remote. They shouldn't be drained or burned to make them productive, nor should they be extracted from. What they need is our respect, because peatlands are the air-conditioning units of the world. Their long-term storage of carbon and filtering of water is helping to keep our climate cool. And no one needs the air-con turned off now. Cors y Llyn near Builth Wells in Powys is a great example of a quaking bog, with strange, stunted ancient Scots pines growing on it. This perfect little bog is surrounded by wonderful orchid meadows (above) and you can nearly always find wild cranberries creeping over the mosses. There is an accessible boardwalk. The Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland is a Unesco world heritage site and perhaps the crown jewel of the UK's peatlands. The biggest blanket bog complex in Europe, it is rich not just in bird life, but also in neolithic structures. Start at the RSPB Forsinard Flows reserve. Swarth Moor is a raised mire next to the village of Helwith Bridge in Ribblesdale. It is home to three nationally scarce species of dragonfly – black darter, common hawker and emerald damselfly. There is well-surfaced bridleway around the southern edge, leading to a viewing platform that gives you a peatland vista without you getting bogged down. The South Pennines is good peat country, with moors galore. Highlights include the moorlands around Gunnerside village, Haworth Moor (above, of Wuthering Heights fame) and Tarn Moss, a raised bog owned by the National Trust. Marches Mosses, a group of lowland raised bogs on the border of Wales and Shropshire, are not without the scars of human intervention – peat cutting, drainage for agriculture, forestry – but still there is a wealth of peatland wildlife, particularly damselflies and dragonflies. There are trails around Bettisfield Moss, Wem Moss and Fenn's and Whixall mosses. Dartmoor in Devon is a vast upland area of peat; much of it is damaged and dominated by purple moor grass, but restoration work is changing this. The visitors centre at Postbridge has Tor Royal Bog, the only raised bog in Devon and Cornwall, while the nearby Fox Tor Mire is a good example of a valley blanket bog. Peatlands by Alys Fowler is out now (Hodder Press, £20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply
Globe and Mail
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Bogged down
As wind turbines on the horizon churn out clean energy, John Smyth bends to stack damp peat – the cheap, smoky fuel he has harvested for half a century. The painstaking work of 'footing turf,' as the process of drying peat for burning is known, is valued by people across rural Ireland as a source of low-cost energy that gives their homes a distinctive smell. But peat-harvesting has also destroyed precious wildlife habitats, and converted what should be natural stores for carbon dioxide into one of Ireland's biggest emitters of planet-warming gases. As the European Union seeks to make Dublin enforce the bloc's environmental law, peat has become a focus for opposition to policies that Mr. Smyth and others criticize as designed by wealthy urbanites with little knowledge of rural reality. 'The people that are coming up with plans to stop people from buying turf or from burning turf... They don't know what it's like to live in rural Ireland,' Mr. Smyth said. He describes himself as a dinosaur obstructing people that, he says, want to destroy rural Ireland. 'That's what we are. Dinosaurs. Tormenting them.' When the peat has dried, Mr. Smyth keeps his annual stock in a shed and tosses the sods, one at a time, into a metal stove used for cooking. The stove also heats radiators around his home. Turf, Mr. Smyth says, is for people who cannot afford what he labels 'extravagant fuels,' such as gas or electricity. The average Irish household energy bill is almost double, according to Ireland's utility regulator, the €800 ($1,250) Mr. Smyth pays for turf for a year. Mr. Smyth nevertheless acknowledges digging for peat could cease, regardless of politics, as the younger generation has little interest in keeping the tradition alive. 'They don't want to go to the bog. I don't blame them,' Mr. Smyth said. Peat has an ancient history. Over thousands of years, decaying plants in wetland areas formed the bogs. In drier, lowland parts of Ireland, dome-shaped raised bogs developed as peat accumulated in former glacial lakes. In upland and coastal areas, high rainfall and poor drainage created blanket bogs over large expanses. In the absence of coal and extensive forests, peat became an important source of fuel. By the second half of the 20th century, hand-cutting and drying had mostly given way to industrial-scale harvesting that reduced many bogs to barren wastelands. Ireland has lost more than 70 per cent of its blanket bog and more than 80 per cent of its raised bogs, according to estimates published by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council and National Parks and Wildlife Service, respectively. Following pressure from environmentalists, in the 1990s, an EU directive on habitats listed blanket bogs and raised bogs as priority habitats. As the EU regulation added to the pressure for change, in 2015, semi-state peat harvesting firm Bord na Mona said it planned to end peat extraction and shift to renewable energy. In 2022, the sale of peat for burning was banned. An exception was made, however, for 'turbary rights,' allowing people to dig turf for their personal use. Added to that, weak enforcement of complex regulations meant commercial-scale harvesting has continued across the country. Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency last year reported 38 large-scale illegal cutting sites, which it reported to local authorities responsible for preventing breaches of the regulation. The agency also said 350,000 metric tons of peat were exported, mostly for horticulture, in 2023. Data for 2024 has not yet been published. Pippa Hackett, a former Green Party junior minister for agriculture, who runs a farm near to where Mr. Smyth lives, said progress was too slow. 'I don't think it's likely that we'll see much action between now and the end of this decade,' Ms. Hackett said. Her party's efforts to ensure bogs were restored drew aggression from activists in some turf-cutting areas, she said. 'They see us as their arch enemy,' she added. In an election last year, the party lost nine of the 10 seats it had in parliament and was replaced as the third leg of the centre-right coalition government by a group of mainly rural independent members of parliament. The European Commission, which lists over 100 Irish bogs as Special Areas of Conservation, last year referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to protect them and taking insufficient action to restore the sites. The country also faces fines of billions of euros if it misses its 2030 carbon reduction target, according to Ireland's fiscal watchdog and climate groups. Degraded peatlands in Ireland emit 21.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, according to a 2022 United Nations report. Ireland's transport sector, by comparison, emitted 21.4 million tons in 2023, government statistics show. The Irish government says turf-cutting has ended on almost 80 per cent of the raised bog special areas of conservation since 2011. It has tasked Bord na Mona with 'rewetting' the bogs, allowing natural ecosystems to recover, and eventually making the bogs once again carbon sinks. So far, Bord na Mona says it has restored around 20,000 hectares of its 80,000 hectare target. On many bogs, scientists monitoring emissions have replaced the peat harvesters, while operators of mechanical diggers carve out the most damaged areas to be filled with water. Bord na Mona is also using the land to generate renewable energy, including wind and solar. Mark McCorry, ecology manager at Bord na Mona, said eventually the bogs would resume their status as carbon sinks. 'But we have to be realistic that is going to take a long time,' he said.
