Don鈥檛 drain the swamp: Annie Proulx extols the virtues of wetlands
Swamps, bogs, and marshes have long been portrayed as uninhabitable, impenetrable, and menacing 鈥� as places to avoid. For centuries, humans drained wetlands to plant crops and graze livestock, and the land was increasingly claimed for housing and later for commercial development. 聽
Yet the importance of wetlands to the global ecosystem can鈥檛 be overstated. Peat bogs, for example, sequester large amounts of the carbon dioxide and methane that are driving climate change. As Annie Proulx writes in 鈥淔en, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis,鈥� wetlands are vital to the well-being of the planet. They can help 鈥渟often the shocks of change.鈥�
As she points out, wetlands have faced 鈥渁 global storm of greed,鈥� with humans intent on draining, stripping, and filling in these spongy landscapes, which appeared to be of little value. 鈥淪ince the fifteenth century when feudalism began to give way to nation-states, Western capitalism and imperialism, we have heard that peatlands are worthless because that same land drained is valuable for agriculture,鈥� Proulx writes. 鈥淲e are now in the embarrassing position of having to relearn the importance of these strange places.鈥澛�
In brief and luminously written chapters, she looks at some of the outbreaks of that storm of greed, starting with the destruction of the English fens and the indigenous peoples who lived there for thousands of years. In all the book鈥檚 sections, the righteous anger of a climate watcher is blended with the beautiful prose this author has been writing for 40 years.聽
鈥淭he fen people of all periods knew the still water, infinite moods of cloud,鈥� she writes. 鈥淭hey lived in reflections and moving reed shadows, poled through curtains of rain, gazed at the layered horizon, at curling waves that pummeled the land edge in storm.鈥澛�
But the main focus of this slim book is what Proulx inimitably refers to as 鈥渢he despicable, exquisite, confounding, ever-changing swamp,鈥� from the evocatively named Great Dismal Swamp, which straddles southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, to the Great Black Swamp in the Midwest, to the Okefenokee in the Southeast. She writes of tramping the聽Okefenokee, 鈥淚t was a mat of sphagnum moss, and although some people say walking on it is like walking on a water bed, I felt its billowy heave was more like a wave of dizziness before you pass out 鈥� a very slow falling sensation although you remain upright.鈥澛犅�
She laments the destruction a century ago of the Kankakee Marsh (鈥渢he Everglades of the North鈥�) in northern Indiana: 鈥淲hen they finished obliterating the Kankakee, the new unbending canal system was ninety miles long,鈥� Proulx writes with a combination of sadness and disdain, 鈥渁 mere 36 percent of what had been the river鈥檚 varied and complex natural length of 250 miles.鈥�
More than half of America鈥檚 wetlands have been wiped out just since the 1980s, and as Proulx admits, it鈥檚 tempting to 鈥渂elieve with hopeless conviction that the past cannot be retrieved.鈥� But a stubborn thread of wary optimism runs through 鈥淔en, Bog and Swamp.鈥澛�
Proulx reminds her readers about 鈥渉ow eagerly nature responds to concerned care.鈥� And she points out that 鈥渢he public is beginning to regard the natural world in a different way. The 鈥榬ights of nature鈥� is a legal concept that is gaining international standing. The United States is among dozens of countries that have committed to some 鈥榬ights of nature鈥� laws that allow citizens to sue on behalf of lakes, streams, ocean reefs, swamps.鈥�
It鈥檚 not too late to start showing care for wetlands 鈥� particularly with powerful books like this one pointing the way. This is a stark but beautifully written 鈥淪ilent Spring鈥�-style warning call from one of our greatest novelists.
