Buying Ireland's Bogs Back, One Reserve at a Time

The Irish Peatland Conservation Council was founded in 1982 to protect a representative sample of Ireland's raised bogs, blanket bogs and fens, and it works by acquiring land outright rather than only campaigning for it. It owns and manages six peatland nature reserves — Lodge Bog and Lullymore West Bog in Kildare, Girley Bog in Meath, Fenor Bog in Waterford, Coad Bog in Kerry and Ketts Lough in Clare — where drains are blocked and cutting stops so peat can start forming again. Its Bog of Allen Nature Centre at Lullymore is a public education base with a bog garden, carnivorous plant collection and school programmes. The organisation runs on four staff, about a hundred volunteers and roughly 2,000 members who call themselves friends of the bog.