Bargerveen

The Bourtangerveen was a raised bog of enormous size straddling the Dutch-German border, and it was almost entirely dug for peat between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries; the canal towns of south-east Drenthe exist because of that industry. The Bargerveen is about twenty-one square kilometres of what was left when cutting was finally stopped in the 1960s after a campaign, and it is the largest remnant of that bog in the Netherlands. Dams, water storage and rewetting have been used since to hold water on the peat and get sphagnum growing again, and the results are watched as a test case for whether a cut bog can be brought back. It supports large bird numbers - hen harrier, cranes since the 2010s, curlew - and adders. The German Bargerveen-Emsland reserve continues across the border and the two are managed together.

What you actually see

• The last piece of the Bourtangerveen - twenty-one square kilometres of a once-vast bog.
• Rewetting on a large scale - dams and storage getting sphagnum growing again.
• Cranes and harriers - breeding on the open bog since the 2010s.
• A cross-border reserve - German protected bog continuing on the far side.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

Flat, open and exposed with no shade and constant wind. Mosquitoes are severe. Much of the interior is closed. The surroundings are peat-colony landscape - canals and straight roads, which some find bleak.

Nearby

Emmen and its Veenpark peat museum are north-west; the German border is east.