The Flow Country of Northern Scotland

A vital wilderness area

The Flow Country is a vast area of blanket bog in the far north of mainland Scotland. The name, which has only been in common use since the 1980s, comes from the local term for the pattern of bogs and small lochs that stretch for many miles. The Flow Country, which is more than a million acres in size, is believed to be the largest expanse of blanket bog in western Europe.

The Flow Country is important from several perspectives. For one thing, it is an area of wilderness that has been largely undisturbed for more than 7,000 years and is therefore a “living fossil” of the landscape as it was soon after the end of the last ice age. Since then, layers of peat have steadily built up as vegetable material has slowly decomposed in wet, poorly drained conditions, to a depth of up to five metres in places. The peat preserves anything that is covered by it, so a section down through the peat provides a wealth of information about what was growing and living here in past ages.

As it is compressed vegetable matter, the peat acts as a massive carbon “sink” that traps millions of tons of carbon that might otherwise be contributing to climate change.

The Flow Country is particularly valuable for the wildlife that it supports. The boggy ground has a highly specialised flora that…