HABITAT DESTRUCTION, DESPAIR AND HOPE IN DREAM ALCHEMY

In the summer of 2013 I worked as a research assistant on the RSPB site at Forsinard.  

The flow country, as it is called, is a vast land of sundew, butterwort, cotton grass and beautiful sphagnum.  Since the 1980s, conifer plantations rose up from the barren landscape.  Tax incentives made such planting economically viable on the marginal land.  Abrupt changes to hydrology, soil nutrients and shade regimes occurred.  Vegetative communities changed.  Bog was no longer bog.

The plantation of the forests was effectively habitat destruction, a major contributor to climate change.  At Forsinard the RSPB are attempting to restore the forested areas back to blanket bog, for active bogs, those that form peat, potentially sequester carbon dioxide.  The long hours I spent measuring environmental variables at Forsinard crystalised ideas I had about my forthcoming book, Dream Alchemy, where environmental destruction brings about not only despair, but hope....