Feedback On ... Peat

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This development, however, depends on the tremendous amounts of nutrients which are tied up in a bog . . . since these deposits become the initial soils of the future forest. If peat is removed from the site, the nutrient bed will be depleted and the succession pushed backward in time. Perhaps hundreds of years—depending on the extent of the damage—may be necessary to return the bog to its original condition.

Mr. Jeffers' analogy of bog and forest management is somewhat misleading. Forests, by their very nature, are climax systems that perpetuate themselves over time. "Moderate" cutting of trees is therefore a somewhat sounder practice than "moderate" cutting of peat. Selective felling and the removal of windthrows and diseased trees may remove valuable nutrients, but it may also increase the vitality of the forest by increasing the growth of stronger or younger specimens . . . thus making for efficiency of reproduction.

Bogs, on the other hand, have none of the forest's stability but represent a fragile stage of plant succession. Any interference— however "moderate"— with such a system will destroy a delicate balance that might take centuries to renew.

Especially drastic damage can be caused by well-meaning but shortsighted dredging plans. The health of a bog—and consequently of any systems that lie downstream and are linked to it in some physical way—depends on its water balance . . . and this is easily destroyed. The principle was well demonstrated in Florida when a group of engineers dug a few canals of moderate size across wetlands to facilitate drainage . . . and thus severed a delicate and beautiful ecosystem from its lifeblood.

Granted, the Florida intervention was on a grand scale, but in this field we still have no way to assess the consequences of even small misguided actions. In any case, the extent of the damage depends on one's point of view. Limited digging or dredging might appear harmless to human observers, but what of a fish trying to spawn or an insect hatching downstream? What of the birds . . . the colorful, secretive species that inhabit wetlands in astounding numbers? What of the fragile orchids which depend for their very existence on the bog community? They aren't mobile and can't remove themselves to another place, or wait for the right conditions to come along and allow them to prevail again. What of the mosses, insectivorous plants, plankton, amphibians, and all the rest? No, in this instance moderation is not the key . . . it's simply a padded sledge against a glass figurine.

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