Mr. Charles Shier:

I will differentiate between two bog types. Bord na Móna acquired bogs over the decades and some were drained but never fully developed for peat production, while others were never drained at all. Where drainage of a bog has occurred without peat production, the bog can be restored by simply blocking up the drains and bringing up the water table. Such bogs can become active carbon sinks and they are easy to deal with. On the other hand, some peatlands have been harvested over two, three or four decades. When one harvests peat, layer by layer, one goes back in time. In the post-glacial landscape, there were forests and fens, reed swamps and lakes and we will get back to recreating that kind of landscape mosaic. The higher areas will stay dry and will be colonised naturally with woodlands or they could be planted with plantation forestry, while other areas will become wetlands, fens and shallow open-water lakes. Over time, some will become carbon sinks.