Language, Landscape, and Longevity: A Conversation with Jennifer de Mooy on Peatlands in a Warming World

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Jessica DeWitt: Peatlands! They are the focus of your new book, Water, Carbon, Time: Exploring Peatlands in a Warming World, which will come out with University of Minnesota Press in September. What are peatlands? What drew you to writing a book about them?

Jennifer de Mooy: Peatlands are remarkably diverse wetland ecosystems that store vast amounts of carbon. I got interested in peatlands when I was working on climate change policy for a state government agency. We were assessing various strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the areas of research that fascinated me was carbon sequestration in natural landscapes—how plants absorb carbon dioxide and store it in their plant tissues and the soil. Peatlands are incredibly efficient at this: peatlands cover only about three or four percent of the earth’s land surface, but they store more carbon than all the world’s forests.

“Peatlands are found all over the world, and while they vary both ecologically and geographically, what they all have in common is their ability to form peat: organic matter that builds over time as plants grow and die.”

Peatlands are found all over the world, and while they vary both ecologically and geographically, what they all have in common is their ability to form peat: organic matter that builds over time as plants grow and die. In peatlands, plant material breaks down very, very slowly. The process of decay is slow because the environment is waterlogged and low in oxygen. The organisms that normally break down plant material and recycle its components just don’t do well in this soggy habitat. As the organic matter accumulates it forms deep layers of peat, and this is what makes peatlands so rich in carbon.

Peatlands are like hidden worlds; they intrigue me not only for the climate connection but also because I have a lifelong love of natural history and many years’ professional experience working in conservation. These interests converged and led me to writing this book.

water carbon time de mooy cover
Purchase Water Carbon Time

DeWitt: I found myself particularly interested in the language used to describe and label peatlands throughout your book and really appreciated that you included a glossary at the beginning. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and I did not encounter the term muskeg until I moved to Saskatchewan in my mid-twenties. What role does language play in our cultural and scientific understanding of peatlands?

de Mooy: Learning the vocabulary of wetlands and of climate science was one of the challenges—and pleasures—of writing a book like this. I think word usage is as important for non-fiction as it is for literature. I wanted the book to be based in sound science, but accessible to readers without a science background. This required some balance: using terms that evoke the richness and nuance of different kinds of ecosystems without overwhelming the reader with a large and unfamiliar vocabulary. I use the word “peatland” throughout the book because it is scientifically accurate and works well as a collective term for the wide variety of these ecosystems.

Names for different kinds of peatlands can be confusing—they vary in different parts of the world and among scientists using different kinds of wetland classification systems. I sometimes refer to this as my “bog book,” because “bog” is an evocative word: even if you’ve never been in a peatland, you can probably visualize something like a bog. The word can convey an aesthetic, even a poetic, meaning, but it also has a scientific one. Bogs are a type of peatland, so are fens. The different terms refer to where the water comes from: a bog gets all of its water from the sky, as rain, snow, and fog, while fens get water from surface water or groundwater as well as precipitation.

muskeg peatland in Canada
“Muskeg Land” by MIKOFOX ⌘ Reject Fear, Go Outdoors, Live Healthy is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

DeWitt: Your book follows a tradition of nature-writing that interweaves personal, firsthand experience into the historical and contemporary scientific information that you are sharing. How important was it for you to visit these peatlands in-person? Did any of your trips stand out? And how do we convey the importance of these ecosystems to people who may never get to experience one firsthand? 

de Mooy: Exploring peatlands on my own was an essential part of my research. My goal was to write in a way that could bring the reader along on my travels. I found each peatland had its own character, its own story. With every new place I visited, I felt the unfamiliar become more familiar; each place revealed a little bit more of the hidden quality of peatlands. I wanted to convey that in the book by writing a collection of place-based chapters that fit together into a larger picture.

As a reader, I’m drawn to narrative non-fiction that satisfies the twin desires of learning something new while also feeling something about the subject. Writing in narrative form makes the stories personal and, I hope, relatable. The importance of peatlands is something I leave up to the reader to discover for themselves. I can describe what I know and have learned about peatlands—about climate science, about the potential for resilience and restoration—and let the reader draw her own conclusions. In the final part of the book, I ask the question: Given what we know about the nature of peatlands and the threats they face, how do we use that knowledge?

DeWitt: NiCHE’s audience is likely to be especially interested in the historical elements of your book. How has our understanding and appreciation of peatlands changed through time? And what are some efforts underway to reclamate damage done to peatlands in the future? 

de Mooy: Our shared human perspective on the world around us has changed greatly over the past two centuries. Natural resources that once seemed abundant and landscapes that appeared unbounded are no longer regarded as limitless. But I think environmental history is more complex than simply a tale of loss and decay.

Time is a key element in this book because peatlands have longevity: they develop over millennia, a time scale closer to geologic and evolutionary time than to human lifetimes. When you consider history in different time frames, long-term trends and short-term trends sometimes tell different stories. This gives us an opportunity to think about what we can do now to influence those trends. Why else would we make the effort to save an endangered species or restore a valued landscape, unless we had some sense of possibility for the future?

An excellent example is Burns Bog in British Columbia [feature image], which is described in the last chapter. The geologic history of the place is related to the changing nature of the Fraser River Delta, how its course has shifted since the end of the last ice age. Then a historic time frame emerges, in which people arrived and settled and were later displaced by other groups of people. The human imprint changes and accelerates as you look at the past century, and up to the present—and now the peatland is surrounded by an urban landscape of industry, agriculture, and hardscape. But the present and future time frame offers another view: collaborative efforts to protect and restore Burns Bog are underway, with support from government agencies, youth groups, and Indigenous communities. I note in that chapter that the management and restoration plan for this project has a 100-year time frame, which is remarkable and encouraging.

horse in muskeg near slave lake in northwest territories.
Horse in muskeg. 1924. Slave River Ravine (N.W.T.). Credit: J. F. Moran / Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development fonds / Library and Archives Canada / a102503-v8.

DeWitt: The book’s exploration of peatlands is driven by the overarching theme of climate change. How are peatlands connected to climate change? How can their reclamation and protection help fight climate change? And how do you find glimmers of hope as you look to the future? 

de Mooy: Peatlands are a carbon treasure chest. Their capacity to hold carbon in the ground is what gives peatlands significant influence in the earth’s climate system. But when a peatland is disturbed, it can trigger a release of this stored carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, powerful greenhouse gases that warm the planet. This is the heart of the climate connection: a direct link between carbon in the ground and carbon in the atmosphere.

“Peatlands have an incredible capacity to endure—if we give them the time and space to do so.”

There is a growing body of research on the influence that peatlands have on climate—as both a carbon sink and a carbon source. And there’s a flip side too, in the effects of climate on peatlands: increasing temperatures lead to drier conditions, greater fire risk, and changes in vegetation and hydrology.

But this book is not just about the dangers and threats to peatlands. It’s also a story of resurrection and resilience. It’s about the power of nature to recover, to adapt. Some of the places I write about in the book offer examples of restoration and recovery. Peatlands have an incredible capacity to endure—if we give them the time and space to do so.

Jennifer de Mooy

Jennifer de Mooy has worked in conservation, environmental protection, and climate policy for forty years. For two decades she designed and implemented projects with The Nature Conservancy to protect and restore natural habitats, and for ten years she worked with the Delaware state environmental agency, promoting climate mitigation policies that enhance the capacity of plant communities to absorb and store carbon.

Feature Image. Aerial Photo of Burns Bog Flux Tower. At the flux tower, the University of British Columbia quantifies exchange of carbon-dioxide and methane between the bog and the atmosphere. Photo by Metro Vancouver. “Burns Bog Flux Tower – Aerial View” by ubcmicromet is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

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Jessica DeWitt

NiCHE Editor-in-Chief, Social Media Editor at Jessica M. DeWitt: Editing and Consulting
is an environmental historian of Canada and the United States, editor, project manager, consultant, and digital communications strategist. She earned her PhD in History from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. She is an executive member, editor-in-chief, and social media editor for the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). She is the Managing Editor for the Chacruna Institute for Psychedelic Plant Medicines and Associate Editor for Environmental Humanities. Closer to home, she is the President of the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society, a Coordinating Team member of Showing Up for Racial Justice Saskatoon-Treaty Six, and a Conservation Advisory Committee member for the Meewasin Valley Authority. She focuses on developing digital techniques and communications that bridge the divide between academia and the general public in order to democratize knowledge access. You can find out more about her and her freelance services at jessicamdewitt.com.

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