Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis

Poetic, wide-ranging, and a display of erudition seldom offered. Whatever opinion or attitude the reader brings to this presentation, it is worth reading for its word art alone!

At one point, Ms. Proulx limns a world of dew-clad dawn spiderwebs, its twinkling luminesces universally linking objects and places, only to become evanescent with the rays of the rising sun. In that glimmering theme, she advances the barely seen web of the world’s wetlands, their almost unrecognized or noticed destructions, and the losses thus incurred. Delving into customs, commerce, tools, the intricacies and etiologies of languages, she leads one into an exploration and realization seldom waded into even in environmental exposition.

Wetlands have a reference vocabulary that is wondrous and almost infinitely varied. The actual physicality of their manifestations are just as diverse and complex as the way our species has tried to speak about them. Historicity, legalities, political strivings and evolutions surface constantly. All is not hopeless. Wetlands are newly revealed, others have potential for renewal. But paying attention to them, their interdependence with our atmospheric carbon, the diversity and wealth of our flora and fauna, is made excruciatingly urgent and important.

I urge all caring people to buy, read, and share this book!