photograph taken on Sunday, the hills in the backgound are the Fintry Hills which are the next range of hills behind the Campsie Fells. Local 'history' has a story of a digger being completly lost in some peat bog on the Campsie Fells, this would make it at least 20ft deep as apparently the digger was never recovered.Upland peat bog;; information taken from Forrestry Commision report
Scotland has over 70% of all bog peat in Great Britain. These are natural archives, storing information in layers of peat about the plant and animal life of the past 3-7,000 years. They also support a variety of plants and animals which have adapted to this environment - like sphagnum moss, which grows in nitrogen poor soils and is mainly responsible for the continued bog growth, and the common sundew, a carnivorous plant that catches insects to provide it with the nutrients lacking in the bog. The high water content of bogs makes them an ideal environment for wading birds, and for many birds of prey. There are concerns about the future of Scotland's blanket bog. Some has been lost to conifer woodland or drained to provide rough pasture. Parts are eroding and losing surface vegetation, probably through a combination of grazing, burning and weather. The remainder is also vulnerable to chemical changes, becoming more acid through pollution from the air. Scotland has one of the richest concentrations of blanket bog in Europe, and the Flow Country of Caithness and Sutherland is probably the largest single expanse of blanket bog in the world. How can we best protect this distinctive habitat?
Mountain Vegetation
Scotland's mountains are relatively unspoilt, and support many rare and unusual plants and upland birds. Like the bogs, the uplands are threatened by chemical pollution from the air which damages vulnerable plants like the mosses. Grazing sheep and deer are cropping vegetation to the roots, damaging the plants and the birds, like the dotterel, that nest among them. Hillwalkers may also be contributing to the erosion of mountain soils, and the processes of erosion are little understood.
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/lowland_raised_bog.html
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/oldsite.nsf/byunique/uplandbog?Open&PrintFriendly=y
4 comments:
now i understand. i read both the link you had at the bottom. we can buy peat here but i don't know if it comes from uk or here. there is no doubt that man is ruining the earth.
interesting. I've read your blog off and on for a while. Mainly linked from Madcap. I just add you to my blog links.
Thanks for sharing the info from there, Claire. It is good to know about these things.
Patsy, we can still buy peat here but they are trying to make it so you can't. Most places offer a peat alternative and I've used them for two years now and they are ok. man surely has done some damage and its a great shame.
Peppylady, thanks for visiting and adding the link, I have read your blog too.
Wildside, it was part of the permaculture course to look at bio-diversity. it's something I hadn't looked at before even though I live right next to it.
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