Opening the pages of Annie Proulx’s book, Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, the reader steps into worlds often seen by humans as alien, unforgiving, unnecessary for advancement, and ripe for exploitation. Over millennia, we have viewed the world’s wetlands, not as the diverse geographical areas they are but as barriers to land and human development. Proulx’s explores this complex relationship between humans and wetlands as well as our complicated, and often destructive, history with them. Her book is a much needed lesson on how our actions regarding wetlands is driving us toward irreversible climate change.

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          An award winning novelist and journalist, Proulx does not have a background in wetlands; however, her interest has spanned a lifetime since she first “jumped from dry land to grassy tussock” (Proulx, 2023) in her childhood. Her words pull us along as she launches into dark, murky swamps, landing us squarely into the unforgiving facts of our carelessness with our world.

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          If one quote could explain the bulk of Proulx’s book, it would be the very one she used by Oliver Rackham that “the history of wetlands is the history of their destruction.” (Proulx, 2023) I would venture further and say that it is also the history of our own destruction. Proulx moves through the various chapters, each one dedicated to a type of wetland: fen, bog and swamp, laying out the history of our wetlands far predating our modern age. In her writing, she is ever mindful of the diversity found between the three named wetlands, while exploring the natural places that buttress against disappearing wetland expanses to make way for human development and capitalist greed.

 

          Proulx highlights the Mesolithic people, whose histories are perfectly preserved amongst the peat and sphagnum moss, along with the bog men and the rich cultures who lived with and alongside these wetlands. She continues the history, interspersing it with imagery of the wilderness that has inspired artists, poets and writers of the past as well as the author herself, which we see in her rich imaginings of what secrets fens, bogs and swamps hold.

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          However, the feeling of loss is never distant as she describes the destruction of these valuable wetland habitats, the extinction of entire species, and the continued loss of cultures and ways of life that relied on them. She draws from the depths of history ancient words for the richness of these wet spaces, bringing back language that has been whittled down to nothing in the same way humans have whittled down wetlands from millions of acres to small footprints amongst urban and rural sprawls. Even with this destruction, wetlands still “cover about 3% of the global land mass” (Proulx, 2023) sequestering a large amount of CO2, which is being released with every acre of wetland lost; a dire warning she returns to frequently in her book.

 

          One of the major faults of the book is Proulx’s fatalistic tone in the first chapter. Missing is the wonder of the rich history she unearths in the following chapters; instead we are faced with stark realities. The “Amazon is now emitting more CO2 than it sequesters,” fires burn across the globe destroying 13.1 million hectares in Russia (2019), 15 million hectares in Australia (2020), 25 percent of the Pantanal (2020) and continued “zombie fires” destroying the Arctic peatmoss from below (2020), all accelerating the process of climate change (Proulx, 2023). The tone seems hopeless, emphasizing a point of no return—hard truths we need to understand but the tone could deter the average reader less inclined to activism.

Finally, while the book is a heavier read in regard to tone, Proulx does offer some hope by explaining conservation efforts in place and the fact that fens, bogs and swamps are continually trying to reclaim the land lost to dredging and draining by humans.

 

          Overall, Fen, Bog & Swamp is an in-depth look at the importance of wetlands and their history alongside our own. It offers insight into how much wetland we’ve lost over the centuries, and discusses the ongoing issues that have occurred because of that habitat loss. If there is one lesson that Proulx returns to often, its that if we don’t allow that reclamation by wetlands, we will be as “haunted by waters” (Proulx, 2023) as she, and the quoted writer Norman Maclean, have been.

 

References

 

Proulx, A. (2023). Fen, bog & swamp: A short history of peatland destruction and its role in the Climate Crisis. Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.