I understand in England they're re-establishing some peat bogs that were drained in Victorian times. I hope other countries do it, too, because it's a very useful product of nature. I'd be happy to have it come in reusable burlap sacks.
"Says I to myself what a pity to see
such a fine strapping lad fotting turf 'round Tralee" (The Kerry Recruit)
Peat bog - the production land of the "useful resource" - may be the least beloved landscape on the planet; and despised, uniquely, by those with the most rather than the least up close and personal experience with it. The northern border of Minnesota was officially surveyed on foot during the winter in straight lines through miles of that misery - which makes the accuracy of the results the notable aspect, rather than the glitch visible in that odd bump on top.
One interesting thing about peat is that it can catch fire and burn below ground level - burn for years.
Garrison Kieller once made - during a road trip for The Prairie Home Companion radio show, in New York City - a pitch for investing in Minnesota peatland, based on the prices he saw in the garden and house plant suppliers of that town. He pointed out that there were "hundreds of acres" (iirc) of peat for sale at very reasonable prices (the figure he put up was something like ten times the going acre price, and the acreage available orders of magnitude less than one can see in even the bare bones road maps of northern Minnesota, but it still made theoretical overnight billionaires of the bold and canny investors with New York connections who filled the seats).
And while the band, most of them with personal experience of peatbog landscape, was building up to incapacitating laughter, the audience appeared to be going quiet, apparently calculating, apparently trying to figure out what the catch was.