Happy bog day
‘URGH,’ you groan, ‘not another ‘day of’ something.’
But wait – this could be a good one!
Sunday, July 26 sees us celebrating International Bog Day.
Ok so we know that International Bog Day sounds like something that has been made up by a lot of strange welly-wearing people who love squelching through peatbogs – and you’re right it has.
But that doesn’t mean that celebrating the wonder of our peat bogs isn’t a great idea!
The fourth Sunday of July every year is given over to spreading the word about how fabulous our peatlands are – and why we need to protect them.
Did you know that peatlands cover only about three per cent of the world’s surface, but store twice as much carbon as all of our forests.
Yet many people know very little about peatlands – even with the once extensive peatlands of Chat Moss being right on our doorstep in Great Manchester.
Sadly, much of Chat Moss has been drained and converted to agricultural land, turf production or the peat extracted to fill up the bags of compost that we buy at the garden centre.
But here at the Wildlife Trust we are working hard to restore those pockets that remain.
And it’s these that we are going to celebrate on Sunday for International Bog Day.
We will be taking over the Lancashire Wildlife Trust Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to bring you loads of fascinating facts, video premieres and live events.
For example, do you know what peat bogs have got to do with pickled onions?
What sphagnum is and why is it so brilliant? And what did Daniel Defoe think about Chat Moss when he visited back in 1726?
Find out the answers to all of these and more throughout the day.
And if you have any other burning questions, we’ll even be doing a live Q&A. So rather than seeing peatlands as boggy wastelands, we want to tell the world what fantastic areas they are.
They provide a home for lots of specially adapted plants and animals, such as the rare Manchester argus butterflies that we reintroduced onto Astley Moss for the first time in nearly 150 years just a few weeks ago – and are a vital natural resource in the fight against climate change.
But looking after them isn’t just up to our amazing conservation officers.
Every year three billion litres of peat are used to make garden compost in the UK alone.
Peatlands are drained, dug up and the peat is used to fill up bags of compost and grow the plants that you buy from your garden centre.
But you can help to stop this simply by switching to peat-free compost, buying your plants from peat-free nurseries and buying peat-free turf.
A small and simple step that could make a huge and amazing difference.
Please, please, please go #PeatFree today.