Kate Hotten
Bog as lake (a metaphor for adaptation): Designing for eco-cultural landscape change on and around raised bogs in the Irish midlands in response to our carbon emissions crisis
Trees and peat soil are spatially incompatible but are the focus of Ireland’s emissions reduction goals for the LULUCF sector. A research question emerges: how can we make room for both in the Irish Midlands? The resulting design proposal is a regional-scale masterplan framework informed by landscape ecology and the Steinitz model of landscape change. Part I reframes expanses of bog as lakes—radically unproductive landscapes that echo the wet Irish midlands of 10,000 years ago. This reassertion of our bogs is an eco-cultural paradigm shift. Part II spatially defines and revives land around the bog (the margins or bog-shore) for biodiversity, silvopasture, paludipasture and pastoral recreation. Finally, Part III refocuses on trees and a strategy for forest beyond the bog-shore.
This is prime work for a bottom-up approach, with a heavy reliance on local labour and volunteerism driving change over nearly 40% of the Midlands. It is also an opportunity to reclaim our expansive public lands in support of this labour. The framework’s impacts are considered on three timescales: present, within 100 years and within 1,000 years. These three landscape strategies across three timescales are represented as a triptych within a triptych, which illustrates the climate and biodiversity-positive spatial outcomes of this land stewardship.