Peatlands

by Alys Fowler

A beautiful, urgent and personal exploration of bogs and the role they must play in saving our planet - for fans of Otherlands and The Last Rainforests of Britain

Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize 2025

'A fascinating, impassioned invitation into the hidden mystery of bogs' - OLIVIA LAING, author of The Garden Against Time

'Enchanting . . . If you've ever looked at a wetland and wanted to know it better, Fowler is an ideal knowledgeable, passionate, and above all, joyous and personable in her prose.' - JESSICA J. LEE, author of Two Trees Make a Forest

'The book throws a sharp light on the plight of bogs - places that come spectacularly to life under Fowler's analytic and passionate gaze. A delight to read but also a sobering education.' - TOM STUART-SMITH

'The curious, still silence of peat bogs is so much at odds with their deep and ancient complexities. This book, so immersive, thoughtfully penned and well-observed makes an intimate connection to these often overlooked and enormously precious places. It makes you want to tread lightly and to look deeper.' - DAN PEARSON

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'Why do I like bogs so much? I think it is because I feel very at home with them, I think this has something to do with my queerness and their queer nature as a space.'

The value of peat bogs as a natural resource and haven of biodiversity is undisputed, yet few of us have been lucky enough to experience their beauty and richness. In Peatlands, Wainwright Prize-shortlisted author Alys Fowler calls for us to sink deep into the dark, black earths of these rugged places and take a close look at the birds, animals, plants and insects that live within them.

Living in Wales nestled between bogs makes Alys Fowler's Peatlands both personal and illuminating. Her odyssey takes her deep into the Flow Country, to the remote Border Mires, through Bannau Brycheiniog, the Peak District and Ireland, creating an intimate picture of these magical places and the people who care for them.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 29, 2025

About the author

Alys Fowler trained at the Horticultural Society, the New York Botanical Garden and the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. After finishing her training, she worked as a journalist for the trade magazine, Horticulture Week, and then joined the Gardeners' World team as a horticultural researcher.
Alys is a gardener who loves food. She has an allotment and an urban back garden with two chickens, lots of flowers and plenty of vegetables. Her inspiration for urban gardening comes from her time volunteering in a community garden on the Lower East side in Manhattan, New York City. Much of the ethic, thrift and spirit she encountered there is found in her work today. She is author of several books and writes a weekly column on gardening for the Guardian.

Reviews

[Laurence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what I was after. This book is packed with information about the feel and nature of bogs, their composition, history and wildlife. Engaging and funny, this is also a book on the climate crisis and full of science. I learned a lot from reading it.

If you don’t like bogs much, don’t expect to like this book and don’t bother rating it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not quite sure how I came to read this book: it was a gift to my gardening mad partner. However I am glad I read it. What I know of peatlands is restricted to my interest in wetlands archaeology, bog bodies and a recent trip to the Outer Hebrides, involving long walks over mires and bogs. I learnt a lot from this book about landscapes that I often overlooked as empty and 'uncomfortable'. Little did I know about the complex structures of bogs and peatlands, the myriad types of mosses, the domes and water channels that exist within them, conservationists and the battle against forest plantations for their survival and restoration. Above all, little did I know about their ecological significance and the battle against CO2 emissions.
At the end of chapter three, I read: "If peat is allowed to age for its entire geological lifetime in its natural environment, it would turn first to lignite, then charcoal, anthracite (a high ranked type of coal), and eventually graphite. But if you dig up any of this, whether it is peat to be used as compost or fuel, or you drain it for agriculture, or you extract it as coal, it goes back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
"That sum of the fossil fuels we are burning, hurtling us into an uncertain future, were once bogs and peatlands is not irony, but a lesson. The earth was burying all this dead organic material for a reason. To reduce atmospheric carbon and make life habitable here. Peatlands weren't born by accident. They were formed by the earth's complex systems to keep the living world cool."
Having said that, it was not an easy book to read. I wasn't quite sure if it was an academic-based work on horticulture, a diary or just a listing of Alys Fowlers reasons for loving peatlands so much. I have to say too that there were some lovely touches of self-irony (learning how to use a microscope) and humanity in her expressions of love for her long-suffering partner, Eli. And worst of all, there were times when I was screaming for a picture, diagram, drawing, watercolour sketch anything that could help me visualise all the different mosses and peatland formations.

[Amy Watson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Naaaah! I think Alys is a bit in love with her own whimsy, she seems continually shocked by just how much she bloody loves…bogs!?

[Felix Brockley-Hatch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s make ‘bog standard’ the highest standard for anything. I loved this book! Wowowowowow

[Kevin Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best monsters are the ones you don't really see, the ones only half revealed and never fully understood. Hidden, mysterious and with a hint of danger to those that tread near, the bog monster becomes inspiration to writer/gardener/questor Alys Fowler who embarks on an eager exploration of our incredible peatlands and the urgent need to redress the real monster behind their deteriorating health.

Exploited for their incredible properties our bogs and fen have long inspired fear, secured lives, enriched our natural world, provided haven for life and storage of our carbon.

Alys has the uncanny ability to take areas of our landscapes and natural world and pull back the veil to see just how much we miss in the sights, sounds and invisible qualities of the spaces and places we budge up against as we seek to mine natural resources for our own benefits.

Accessible, wide ranging and at times genuinely startling, Peatlands will unlock curiosity and fascination into the strange other worldly nature of a landscape it's easier to ignore than not, and inspire wonder.

Covering flora and fauna, biology, geology, farming practices, history, mystery and policy as she wades herself, family and friends through the wettest walks imaginable, this book will genuinely give the reader a whole new landscape to ponder. All hail the bog monster!

[Jane Morrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love letter to our peatlands, and as a bog lover, I knew I had to pick this up! I spent a weekend a few years ago volunteering with RSPB at Forsinard, Alys captures the wonder and beauty of the place vividly! This book doesn't shy away from the science but it's still incredibly accessible, which is quite a skillful thing to achieve. I love science and nature writers who aren't afraid to let their feelings and passion shine through, it takes bravery as so many of us are trained not to do this during our studies! I found this very informative, inspiring and calming to read.

[Ele Cockerill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly enlightening about the world of bogs - something we clearly need to pay more attention to! Beautifully written.