This peatland used to be an oil well!
A story of a Bog in Alberta, Canada
The Legacy of Exploration
Here the landscape is a criss-cross circuit board of squares and lines superimposed over a wet and wild terrain. We’re on the lands of the First Nations, Metis and Inuit subject to colonial Treaty 6 in what is presently-called Alberta, Canada. The squares are oil well-pads, and the lines are access routes and ‘seismic lines’ where equipment is deployed to analyse the surrounding geology. Many of these pads and lines were for exploratory purposes, to understand where would be most optimal to establish a longer-term operation for oil extraction.
Peatlands in this area are often tree-covered, with dense black spruce and tamarack trees growing slowly in the wet peat. The lines and squares that we see are so visible because of the clearance of these peaty trees. Following deforestation, the peatland surface would often be too soft and mushy for heavy machines to move along meaning that the oil industry would often cover up the peat surface with clay (‘mineral fill’). Even in areas where they didn’t have to do this, the machines would still greatly compact the peat surface.
After exploration, industry has a legal obligation to remove the mineral fill. But this often hasn’t really restored the peatland ecology, in part because reclamation methods have generally been developed for upland landscapes - so well-pads reclaimed in this way end up looking more like grasslands. It was also thought that the seismic lines would just gradually regenerate by themselves, but because of the compaction caused by the heavy machinery the water table sits too high for trees to establish.
Collaborating with Moss and Water
Dr Bin Xu, Research Chair in Peatland Restoration at the Northern Alberta Institute for Technology, has adapted peatland restoration methods originally developed by Line Rochefort on bogs in eastern Canada which were mined for the horticultural peat industry. The approach is simple but transformative: water and mosses have to take centre stage. If you don’t address the hydrology of the area - understanding how water moves and sits in this compacted landscape - and take steps to address this, then the peatland won’t recover. Removing or burying mineral fill and reprofiling the peat surface can shift the topography of the pad back into line with the surroundings and re-establish water flow. And once the hydrological situation is on the mend, get Sphagnum in there to work its magic. We’ve all heard Sphagnum moss be called an ‘ecosystem engineer’, so when we humans need to re-engineer the land to repair the damage of industry- our most qualified collaborator is right there, waiting just off to the side of the well-pad! A layer of straw mulch helps to protect Sphagnum from the elements in the very early stages, and then once established the Sphagnum carpet holds water and shifts its chemistry, filtering out any non-peatland species which may have found their way in during the transition.
Polytrichum, another kind of moss, also lends a helping hand. Polytrichum (or haircap moss) is what is known as a pioneer species: those species which have adaptations to the difficult conditions of exposed land and are the first to establish in an area after a disturbance. A unique feature of Polytrichum enabling it to do this are the small ridges on its stem leaves called lamellae. These increase the surface area available for photosynthesis, but they also help the moss retain water when conditions are dry and continue to access oxygen when they may be flooded. This is because in dry conditions, moisture can be retained in between those grooves, while when flooded it is small air bubbles that remain in the grooves. These are all great adaptations to growing well on exposed patches of ground, such as bare peat, which can easily dry out in wind and sun, as well as flooding or frosting over. And once Polytrichum has established, it helps other plants get a foothold - by catching seeds and spores blown in the wind and trapping moisture on the peat surface.
Highways for Wolves
For those seismic lines, Dr Xu also turns to the peatland itself for help. These lines are too wet for trees to grow because of the peat compaction by the oil industry’s machinery. An approach often used in upland forest areas is to dig up the soil surface and flip it upside down, breaking up the compacted ground and creating a more favourable environment for trees to establish. Now imagine doing this on peat. All you would end up with are piles of slop decomposing in the fresh air and releasing stored carbon. We know where trees and shrubs like to grow on peatlands: hummocks. So Dr Xu suggests simply going along the seismic line and transferring hummocks from just off of the line onto the compacted peat. Sphagnum growth around the hummock edge stitches the hummock to the peat surface, recreating a gradual hummock-hollow bumpiness to the line.
Restoring trees to the seismic lines is expected to support local caribou populations. This is because, as Dr Xu describes it, these lines act as highways for wolves. I can confirm that it is far harder to walk through the forested peatland areas than the seismic lines! In the tree-covered areas you can only really see a few metres ahead, compared to the long straight views down the seismic lines. Caribou are a particularly significant species for First Nations, Metis and Inuit, and have been driven to decline significantly in recent decades. Reintroducing trees to seismic lines is one possible way to support the recovery of this iconic species.
A Toolkit for a Just Transition
Peatland restoration is no substitute for the urgent work needed to phase out fossil fuels. The oil industry continues to use its political power to maintain rampant extraction in Alberta and elsewhere, fuelling increasing temperatures and forest fires which have killed tens of thousands.
Peatland restoration is no substitute for protecting intact peatlands. While we can bring back peatland vegetation and hydrology, preventing massive amounts of further carbon being released, it will take centuries to recover the carbon emitted as a result of the initial drainage.
But an effective peatland restoration toolkit can help to bring about a just transition. With a proven method for rapidly restoring peatland ecology at our hands, peatland restoration can be a viable pathway for workers out of the oil and gas industry in Alberta while at the same time strengthening Indigenous sovereignty.
Further reading
How Scientists are Restoring Boreal Peatlands
Restoration of boreal peatland impacted by an in-situ oil sands well-pad 1: Vegetation response
Smoke from Canada’s wildfires killed nine-year-old Carter Vigh – and 82,000 others around the world
Indigenous-led conservation of Caribou
Nature-based Solutions can generate 20 million new jobs
List of 27 Indigenous-Led Natural Climate Solutions projects 2023–2024
