Description

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week
A subject that could not be more important A compact classic Bill McKibben
I learned something new and found something amazing on every page Anthony Doerr author of All the Light We Cannot See

From Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx whose novels are infused with her knowledge and deep concern for the earth comes an urgent and riveting history of wetlands their ecological role and how the loss of them threatens the planet

Fens bogs swamps and marine estuaries are the earths most desirable and dependable resources and in four illuminating parts Proulx documents the emergence of their systemic destruction in the pursuit of profit and the consequent release of their stored carbon Wideranging and idiosyncratic Proulxs explanation of wetlands takes readers to the fens of sixteenthcentury England Canadas Hudson Bay Lowlands Russias Great Vasyugan Mire and Americas Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and introduces the nineteenthcentury explorers who launched the ravaging of the Amazon rainforest
Proulx was born in the 1930s a time as she says when in the evercontinuing name of progress Western countries busily raped their own and other countries of minerals timber fish and wildlife Fen Bog amp Swamp is both a revelatory history and an urgent plea for wetland reclamation from a writer whose passionate devotion to observing and preserving the environment is on glorious display

Magnificent bringing to life hitherto overlooked habitats Guardian

Proulxs sparkling book will open your eyes to humanitys reckless trashing of wetlands Telegraph

A haunting tribute Proulxs poetic description of these places and peat itself is a pleasure to read Financial Times