Description
Book SynopsisIn a world filled with breathtaking beauty, we have often overlooked the elusive charm and magic of certain landscapes. A cloudy river flows into a verdant Arctic wetland where sandhill cranes and muskoxen dwell. Further south, cypress branches hang low over dismal swamps. Places like these–collectively known as swamplands or peatlands–often go unnoticed for their ecological splendor. They are as globally significant as rainforests, and function as critical carbon sinks for addressing our climate crisis. Yet, because of their reputation as wastelands, they are being systematically drained and degraded to make way for oilsands, mines, farms, and electricity. In Swamplands, journalist Edward Struzik celebrates these wild places, venturing into windswept bogs in Kauai and the last remnants of an ancient peatland in the Mojave Desert. The secrets of the swamp aren’t for the faint of heart. Ed loses a shoe to an Arctic wolf and finds himself ankle-deep in water during a lightning storm. But, the rewards are sweeter for the struggle: an enchanting Calypso orchid; an elusive yellow moth thought to be extinct; ancient animals preserved in lifelike condition down to the fur. Swamplands highlights the unappreciated struggle being waged to save peatlands by scientists, conservationists, and landowners around the world. An ode to peaty landscapes in all their offbeat glory, the book is also a demand for awareness of the myriad threats they face. It urges us to see the beauty and importance in these least likely of places. Our planet’s survival might depend on it.
Table of ContentsPreface Introduction Chapter 1: The Great Dismal Swamp Chapter 2: Central Park Chapter 3: Peat and Endangered Species Chapter 4: Tropical Peat Chapter 5: Ash Meadows, Ancient Bogs, and Desert Fens Chapter 6: Sasquatches of the Swamps Chapter 7: Peat and Reptiles Chapter 8: Mountain Peat Chapter 9: Ring of Fire: The Hudson Bay Lowlands Chapter 10: Pingos, Polygons, and Frozen Peat Chapter 11: Tundra Beavers, Saltwater Trout and Barren Ground Grizzly Bears Chapter 12: Portals to the Otherworld Chapter 13: Growing Peat Conclusion
