Nature fights back - time in the bog in Littleton

The old bog road from Littleton to Killenaule runs alongside this Coillte plantation of Sitka spruce near what is known locally as the "Wooden Bridge" (now a stone bridge) where Liskeveen in North Tipperary meets Killeens in South Tipperary. Before Bord na Mona, with its industrial machines removed several meters of peat from this area, turf was cut and saved by hand.
The beauty of this Coillte plantation is captured by the waters of this cutaway bog that have been rewet as part of a Bord na Mona long-term rehabilitation process to bring back reed-beds, grasses, rushes, bog-cotton, spagnum-moss and native trees such as birch.
However according to Eamon Ryan, Green Party Leader and Minister for Transport, Environment, Climate Change and Communications (Irish Times, Harry McGee, Saturday, December 19, 2020) the day of large Sitka spruce plantations is coming to an end; “140,000 hectares of bog throughout the state will be rewetted within a decade, simply by removing drains. They will become a carbon sink...If there are smaller, less-intensely operated farms, then there will also be far more forestry.” Today just over a 10th of the State (770,000 hectares) is planted. He wants that increased to 30 per cent...20,000 hectares of trees each year.
Equally, that does not mean more Sitka spruce on bog or mountains: "We can't put forests where we have put them before on peatlands, as we need to restore the bogs for carbon storage. Instead, new forests will be planted on better land, and include deciduous trees. There is also a plan to encourage farms to devote a hectare to tree-planting and wild flowers."
Visitors to bog areas have increased in recent times. People should keep to designated paths and be aware that there are some very deep drains and a number of tailing ponds for filtering the bog-water before it enters the local rivers. These are a hundred meters in length and several meters deep and contain a mixture of water and silt.