![]() Our planet’s survival might depend on it.Īdventurous natural history… Swamplands belongs to the John McPhee school of science popularizing, incorporating profiles of on-site specialists into its crisp and enthusiastic explainers. It urges us to see the beauty and importance in these least likely of places. An ode to peaty landscapes in all their offbeat glory, the book is also a demand for awareness of the myriad threats they face. Swamplands highlights the unappreciated struggle being waged to save peatlands by scientists, conservationists, and landowners around the world. 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. Ed loses a shoe to an Arctic wolf and finds himself ankle-deep in water during a lightning storm. The secrets of the swamp aren’t for the faint of heart. 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. ![]() Yet, because of their reputation as wastelands, they are being systematically drained and degraded to make way for oilsands, mines, farms, and electricity. They are as globally significant as rainforests, and function as critical carbon sinks for addressing our climate crisis. Places like these–collectively known as swamplands or peatlands–often go unnoticed for their ecological splendor. Further south, cypress branches hang low over dismal swamps. ![]() ![]() A cloudy river flows into a verdant Arctic wetland where sandhill cranes and muskoxen dwell. In a world filled with breathtaking beauty, we have often overlooked the elusive charm and magic of certain landscapes. ![]()
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