The Flow Country (Scottish Gaelic: Dùthaich nam Boglaichean) is a very large area of wetland covered in peat in Caithness and Sutherland, northern Scotland. It is the largest blanket bog in Europe and covers about 4,000 km² (1,500 mi²). The area has deep peat and many small pools, making it an important place for wildlife. Peat is mostly made of plant remains, which contain carbon. This carbon stays locked in the peat for thousands of years instead of being released into the air, where it could help cause global warming. In 2024, the Flow Country was given World Heritage status by UNESCO because of its unique blanket bog habitat. It includes the Forsinard Flows National Nature Reserve and the Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands.
Wildlife
The Flow Country is a place with many types of animals and is an important area where several bird species breed. These birds include greenshank, dunlin, merlin, and golden plover. Birds of prey that live in the Flow Country are buzzard and hen harrier.
A common plant in the Flow Country is sphagnum moss. This moss holds a lot of water and can eventually create peat, which is the foundation of a blanket bog. Carnivorous plants, such as roundleaved sundew, greater sundew, and butterwort, grow there and eat many of the insects that live in the area.
Large animals like red deer and the less common roe deer live in the Flow Country all year. During the autumn mating season, these deer can be heard making loud noises.
Geology
The main type of deposit in this area is peat. Other deposits from the Quaternary period include materials from the ice age, such as till, and sediments left by rivers after the ice age. These layers cover bedrock that formed during four different time periods. The oldest bedrock is the Lewisian gneiss, which dates back to the Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic eras. Another layer is the Moine succession from the Neoproterozoic era, which contains granite that formed during the Ordovician and Silurian periods. The youngest bedrock is the Old Red Sandstone, which is mostly from the Devonian period.
History
"Flow" is a Scottish word for a wet, muddy area called a bog, which may have come from the Old Norse language (similar to the Icelandic word "flói," which means the same thing). The bogs in the Flow Country have been changed by human activities since the end of the last ice age. Over the past 200 years, these bogs have been affected by activities such as sheep grazing and tree farming.
During the 1970s and 1980s, government tax benefits encouraged commercial tree farming. These operations drained parts of the bogs and planted trees that were not originally from the area, harming the bogs and reducing the peatland. In 1987, the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) published a report in London that strongly criticized the tree farming practices. In 1988, the Finance Act removed the tax benefits for forestry due to the damage done to the UK's natural areas, stopping further tree planting.
Ongoing conservation
In an effort to repair the damage, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) purchased a large area in the center of the Flow Country and established the Forsinard Flows national nature reserve. Over 20 kilometers of land was purchased from Fountain Forestry, and young trees were cut down and left to rot in the plough furrow. This process is expected to help the land return to a peat bog in 30 to 100 years.
The RSPB was a key partner in the Flows to the Future Project, a large-scale and comprehensive effort to restore large parts of the Flow Country and raise public awareness about its importance. The project supported the creation of the well-received Flows Lookout Tower.
Approximately 1500 kilometers of the Flow Country is protected as both a Special Protection Area and a Special Area of Conservation, known as the Caithness and Sutherland Peatlands.
The Flow Country was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2024. It is one of three natural World Heritage landscapes in the United Kingdom. The other two are the Giants Causeway in County Antrim and the Jurassic Coast in Dorset.