In a world filled with breathtaking beauty, we have often overlooked the elusive charm and magic of certain landscapes. A cloudy river flows into a verdant Arctic wetland where sandhill cranes and muskoxen dwell. Further south, cypress branches hang low over dismal swamps. Places like these–collectively known as swamplands or peatlands–often go unnoticed for their ecological splendor. They are as globally significant as rainforests, and function as critical carbon sinks for addressing our climate crisis. Yet, because of their reputation as wastelands, they are being systematically drained and degraded to make way for oilsands, mines, farms, and electricity.
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. The secrets of the swamp aren't for the faint of heart. Ed loses a shoe to an Arctic wolf and finds himself ankle-deep in water during a lightning storm. 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.
Swamplands highlights the unappreciated struggle being waged to save peatlands by scientists, conservationists, and landowners around the world. An ode to peaty landscapes in all their offbeat glory, the book is also a demand for awareness of the myriad threats they face. It urges us to see the beauty and importance in these least likely of places. Our planet's survival might depend on it.
""Adventurous natural history… Swamplands belongs to the John McPhee school of science popularizing, incorporating profiles of on-site specialists into its crisp and enthusiastic explainers. The striking geological process behind the formation of peat gets its due, as do these regions' extraordinary biodiversity. None of this, of course, makes the world of fens and bogs any more hospitable to people. But by the end of this fascinating book, that seems like a point in their favor."" ""Part science, part history, part travelogue…[a] rare treasure-nature writing that isn't pure elegy."" "His book has relevance to many disciplines – ecology, environmental science, cultural studies, anthropology, history, postcolonial studies – without ever getting bogged down in jargon or discussion of scholarship. Struzik's writing is consistently descriptive and conversational, so that the reader feels as though they're accompanying him and his interviewees through isolated landscapes , sharing his sense of wonder." ""Struzik writes with immediacy and a sense of awe, bewitching readers with the unexpected beauty of peatlands."" "
"A powerful, impressive feat of popular science that is vitally needed in an era of climate change."
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"Few books attempt to do what Ed Struzik's latest book, Swamplands, does so well: taking the reader knee-deep into an ecosystem that few ever think about, let alone possess the desire (or nerve) to travel to, or rally around…. Swamplands is a timely cry against the ongoing consequences of draining wetlands for farmland and commercial development, and of stripping peatlands for fuel and fertilizer."
" "Timely and enchanting disquisition on the many facets of peat...ultimately this is a book that stands apart for its playfulness and curiosity, for a sense of wonder that does not yield to despair or grief." "
"By exposing and exploring the varied influences on swamp management, perception, and evolution, Edward Struzik contributes a key resource that is highly recommended for any collection strong in ecological systems analysis."
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"I would wholeheartedly recommend Swamplands to anyone interested in reading auto biographical accounts, learning about undervalued and little-understood landscapes, or examining human interactions with the natural world…. It is packed with expediti
