Ramsar Wetland Convention Meeting in Korea: Peat, Bogs And Poetry

Photo from Indonesia: Greenpeace activists working with locals to halt drainage by constructing dams on peatlands. This will prevent the peatland from drying out and releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Peat-forming wetlands are an estimated 60% of all the wetlands distributed globally. Do peatlands remain in the "grey zone" seemingly unattractive to the conservation movement? I was reminded of Digging, the poem by Seamus Heaney:Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

- Seamus Heaney

Photo: Secretary-General Anada TiÃ©ga (left) presents Clayton Rubec, Canada, with a certificate designating him as a "Wetland Person of International Importance" for his long standing service to the Ramsar Wetland Convention.

Read more: Peatlands Wise Use and Management

Brought to you by Martin Frid at greenz.jp

Tags: Canada | Conservation | Indonesia | South Korea