IMCG - The First 18 Years (1983 - 2001)

by Richard Lindsay

It really is astonishing how rarely we recognise key moments in our lives when they actually happen. With hindsight, of course, it is easy to see how some things have subsequently come to change our lives in a fundamental way, but at the time we are usually too close to events. A single earthquake or volcanic eruption can cause sufficient consternation and chaos to keep us completely occupied with day-to-day survival. It may prevent us from seeing that it is the first stage in the opening of a new ocean, the re-shaping of the landscape that we have known until now.

In some ways the analogy is rather apt. I don't believe it is too much of an exaggeration to say that, in its 18-year existence, the IMCG has helped to change the global conservation landscape. It would be wrong to claim too much for the IMCG. Nevertheless, I think that most international environmental organisations (and many domestic ones) would acknowledge that the IMCG has played a key part in moving peatlands from the fringes of environmental thinking to a place at the heart of many global environmental issues.

The beginnings of this process seemed so innocent, so innocuous, in the form of a letter inviting various peatland scientists to Finland - specifically to Oulu - in the autumn of 1983 for a field symposium about peatland vegetation. The event was the brainchild of Seppo Eurola and Antti Huttunen, of Oulu University, and they succeeded in bringing together an impressive array of peatland specialists from around the world. It included such peatland luminaries as Hugo Sjörs, Nils Malmer, the late (and much lamented) Stephen Zoltai and his wife Elizabeth, Klaus Dierssen, and of course Seppo Eurola. Not all of us were so impressive. At the time I was, shall we say, a trainee peatland specialist for the UK government wildlife agency, but I was embraced within the group with as much warmth as anyone, and some ground-breaking discussions were held in the sauna, lubricated with generous quantities of beer. I will never forget such a discussion with Klaus Dierssen, where he explained to us all the absolutely fundamental importance of Hugh Ingram's 'ground-water mound' theory for peatland conservation. Raised bog conservation in Europe would never be the same again. Neither would the world of music. It is impossible for any delegate there to forget the profoundly emotional experience of listening to Asbjørn Moen's rendition of his own spontaneous composition - Oulanka-joki (Oulanka River) - with its remarkably variable number of verses, its free-form time signature and astonishingly easy-to-learn lyrics (and now part of IMCG legend).

At the end of the Finland Symposium, several participants expressed their desire to have a similar meeting but with peatland conservation as the main theme. Michael Steiner said that he would be willing to host such an event. We all went home and thought no more about it until a letter appeared inviting us all to a field symposium in Austria, in the autumn of 1984. Michael had been as good as his word.

The invited delegates duly assembled at Innsbruck in 1984, and what followed was an eye-opening tour of Austria's peatlands, from west to east. Michael Steiner had laid on a programme that displayed the full range of peatland types and peatland conservation problems. The symposium coach in effect became our travelling home, and thus (though we didn't realise it at the time) the pattern was set for all subsequent IMCG Field Symposia - two weeks, travelling the host country, seeing the issues and problems for ourselves. At Klagenfürt, the afternoon was spent discussing the group and its purpose. Hugo Sjörs urged the group to become the dynamic force for peatland conservation that the IPS conservation group had failed to achieve. After some discussion about the name, it was agreed that the group should be henceforth known as the International Mire Conservation Group. I was elected temporary Chairman simply because I was the only native English speaker, and it had already been agreed that the language of the IMCG should be English (or assorted variants thereof). It was also agreed that the next Field Symposium should be held in Britain, specifically to look at a major peatland problem that was developing there in an obscure place called the Flow Country.

In 1986 the IMCG duly assembled in London (thus establishing another key feature of holding field symposia biennially). Sarah Oldfield and I acted as the coordinators. The programme took the Group up to Scotland, starting at Fort William on the west coast and heading in a huge loop all around the north of Scotland, through the Flow Country, and ending in Edinburgh for a 1-day Conference (again, establishing a pattern followed henceforth). The Group saw the scale of peatland destruction caused by forestry across thousands of hectares of blanket mire, tailed all the while by a radio journalist from the BBC. Antti Huttunen spoke for the Group when he said, while gazing out over the area in the evening light - "this is truly an organic landscape of world significance". Back in Edinburgh, Steve Zoltai steered the Group to produce a series of Resolutions (yet another precedent followed by all other Symposia) which were sent to the UK Government - at the time, headed by Margaret Thatcher........ In part thanks to the IMCG's intervention, the UK Government finally protected the Flow Country from further forestry damage in 1988, and only last year the UK Heritage Secretary expressed his intention to designate the Flow Country as a World Heritage Site.

In 1988 the IMCG Field Symposium was held in Sweden, and was organised by Christer Gøransson. This was a critical time for peatland conservation in Sweden, particularly in the face of demands from forestry and peat extraction. Inventory was not complete, and more resources were urgently needed for peatland conservation programmes. The IMCG travelled throughout central Sweden, seeing the issues for itself and talking to local and national interests both face-to-face and through the ever-present media. Again a set of Resolutions came out of the Symposium, and one of the most tangible results from these was the subsequent designation of Blaikfjellet - a very large area of peatland - as a National Park.

Subsequent Field Symposia followed in Ireland (1990), Switzerland (1992), Norway (1994), Japan (1996), Latvia (1998) and British Columbia (2000). Each Symposium has, in its own way, achieved things for peatland conservation in the host country, and IMCG can feel pride in the legacy that it has left on the peatland conservation landscape in these countries.

With Norway, however, IMCG also found itself swimming in larger, deeper waters thanks to the initiative of Clayton Rubec, from Canada. He saw a rôle for the IMCG on the international stage, pushing the larger international conservation groups to recognise that peatlands play a major part in the global ecosystem. Under Clayton's guidance, the Group drew together a set of statements and observations highlighting this importance. Clayton and I then sat, one evening, drafting the document late into the sunlit northern night as we gazed out across a vast Norwegian fjord. Neither of us will forget the way that, as we put the last piece of text together, two dolphins leaped from the water, perfectly framed by the picture window and looking like liquid fire in the light of the golden midnight sun.....

With this document, which subsequently become known as the Trondheim Declaration, the IMCG found itself increasingly drawn into the work of the Ramsar Convention and, through Ramsar's own links, to the work of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC). Since then, the IMCG has attended two Ramsar Conventions with Observer Status, now sits on the Peat Working Group of Ramsar's Scientific and Technical Review Panel (STRP), meets with officials of DGXI of the European Commission through the European Habitats Forum, and is a lead organisation in taking forward the Global Action Plan for Peatlands (GAPP), which is the ultimate product of Clayton's efforts all those years ago in Norway. The IMCG is also now, through Hans Joosten, a joint author with the International Peat Society (IPS) of the draft Wise Use Guidelines for Peatlands, and project partner on Wetlands International's Central European Peatland Project (CEPP).

There have also been IMCG Workshops, held firstly and most memorably on the Solovyetski Islands in the White Sea, with the late and much lamented Marina Botch acting as IMCG's host. These Workshops, also held in Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland, have led to some significant steps forward in the common understanding of peatland systems, as well as, courtesy of Ron Hofstetter, the creation of as impressive a set of terms as one could hope for, my particular favourite being chertosomatic ombrohydrogenic Sphagnopedic oligotrophic hygrogaia (bog).

Despite all this more recent involvement on the world stage, the IMCG is still, at heart, a body concerned to promote the conservation of peatland systems at all levels. I know the sense of joy and relief it brought me to know that there were other peatland specialists out there who had the same problems but who were also willing to help share mine. The world is a big place with big problems, and sometimes it is easy to feel rather alone and helpless in the face of powerful development proposals. The IMCG exists in part to help dispel this sense of isolation. For many of us over the years it has been a treasured source of support and guidance, without which the job of peatland conservation would have been much bleaker and lonelier.

At the same time it is also an organisation that still, as it were, keeps its boots firmly in the mire. Active involvement in the conservation of specific sites and peatland areas continues to play a key part of IMCG activities. The organisation has never become a body simply interested in the development of large-scale strategies and broad policies. If it were to do so, it would lose an important part of its purpose and would weaken its reputation as an essentially field-based network of experts. It has managed to retain its belief that conservation ultimately succeeds on the ground, and it constantly works to pass on that message to others. Consequently the IMCG continues to be involved with the conservation of individual sites throughout the globe, providing international support wherever it is needed.

It has been a fascinating, exciting (sometimes too exciting!) and rewarding experience to be Chairman of the IMCG during these years. What have I gained from it? A wide network of truly good friends from around the world. A wealth of experience, provided generously and selflessly by a number of people who know far more about peatlands than I ever will. An opportunity to see the vast diversity of the global peatland environment (never let anyone tell you that peatlands are boring!) and a growing understanding of just how significant peatlands are to the global ecosystem. An opportunity to speak on behalf of peatlands on the global stage, and thereby give something back to the world's peatlands in return for the pleasure that they have given me. And they have given me my future wife. What more could I ask?

Now the IMCG stands poised on the brink of a new era. The tragedy of Ton Damman's death, which is a terrible personal blow to all who knew, loved and admired him, leaves the IMCG without a Chairman just as it enters the world stage as a formally-constituted body. I am sure that the IMCG will survive. It has a rich history on which it can draw, and of which it can be proud.

Floreat IMCG !