But the 87-year-old author's newest book, Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis, is a love letter to ecosystems that are rapidly disappearing — America's wetlands.
"Before the last wetlands disappear I wanted to know about this world we are losing," Proulx writes. "What was a world of fens, bogs and swamps and what meaning did these peatlands have, not only for humans but for all other life on Earth?" (...)
On what she learned in her research on fens, bogs and swamps
We tend to tag everything in the natural world in terms of what use it is to humans. And I was curious to know how it fits in with the great scheme of life, how it belonged to other parts of the world, how land and water and creatures and weather and climate change were all knit together. So that was the thing. I wasn't looking for benefits to humans as an explanation of anything. I was looking for how these guys work with each other. But also, I was very curious about human responses to these wetlands. So that took me into the history. And that, of course, was the fun part. Poking around with the people of the fen, the battle in the bogs and the various swamps in North America that were drained and made into productive soil.
On the history of peatland destruction
The peatlands have never been regarded as something that's a necessary part of life, but as an obstruction, something that's in the way. The ideal, of course, is agriculture. For most people, it wasn't a measure of any kind of utility to talk about a peat-producing wetland as helpful. So it was really a change of attitude more than anything else that I stumbled on. It's really hard to read about this sort of thing because people insist on thinking of the natural world only in terms of utility to humanity. We don't see ourselves as part of this system, but as lords and rulers of the natural world.
by Julie Depenbock, NPR | Read more:
Image: Stephen B. Morton/AP
