A SCOTTISH invention that is spreading around the world and glories in all things moist and marshy celebrates its 21st birthday today.

International Bog Day started in 1997 after a global conference on bogs with ecologists and other scientists from all over the world was held in Scotland.

Now the event is marking its coming-of-age with half a dozen events in Scotland, plus bog celebrations in the rest of the UK, Ireland and across North America.

The idea of an event to get the message across that bogs are an important natural habitat – and a valuable resource in fighting climate change – was the brainchild of the Scottish Wildlife Trust charity. Threats to bogs globally include being drained for agriculture, peat digging for gardens, and encroaching trees.

The trust’s Rory Syme said: “The Scottish Wildlife Trust set up National Bog Day in 1991 as a way for the public to find out more about the peatlands and bogs around them."

He added: “In 1996, the trust hosted a major international conference on peatlands here in Edinburgh. Experts and scientists came from all over the world to discuss the way forwards for peatlands.

“People at that conference heard that we were holding National Bog Day and took that back to their own areas like Ireland and the States, and started to run their own events on the same day, the fourth Sunday in July – and so from 1997 it became International Bog Day"

Unique plants found in Scotland’s bogs include species of the carnivorous sundew, which trap insects on sticky pads and then absorb them. They have evolved for the bog environment because the peat they grow on is so nutrient-poor they need vital foods from elsewhere.

Dr Tim Duffy is an ecologist who chairs the committee that runs the Red Moss of Balerno bogland nature reserve, and will be in charge of Bog Day events there today.

He encourages “bog lying”, getting up close and dirty with the peat, moss and the other plants.

He says: “Bogs can seem like bleak places but there is a lot of beautiful stuff going on in them, and amazing colours. Red Moss of Balerno may have got its name from the red sphagnum moss that grows here.

“People these days realise bogs are worth millions of pounds to the world as carbon sinks. The Scottish Government has put some useful amounts of money into bog restoration in Scotland, which is great. They are working on making some of our degraded bogs wetter to become proper carbon sinks again.”

Celebrations of International Bog Day today in Scotland include the event at Balerno and guided walks and bog activities at Portmoak Community Woodland in Kinross.

https://bogday.org/events-scotland/