Between the villages of Iseo, Clusane, Timoline and Provaglio there is a peat plain of 2km2 that in certain places reaches a depth of 5 metres.
It is a rather small area: only 360 hectares formed by stretches of water, surrounded by cultivated fields or by roads and houses. One part is in direct contact with Lake Iseo and is called Lametta; there is also an inner part called Lama, formed by big basins that are divided by small dikes of earth, and another part with more basins obtained after the extraction of clay. The formation of the peat-bogs knew no problems until human intervention which, started episodically first, systematically progressed for a century from the second half of 1800.

When desiccated, peat was a precious material for the economy of the area because it could be used instead of coal, which was very expensive to import. Before the oil age and the introduction of electricity, peat was used in furnaces, spinning wheels, factories, to heat houses and even to stoke the train Brescia-Iseo-Edolo until the First World War. Apart from its use during the Second World War, peat has completely ceased to be in demand since the Fifties. As a consequence, the landscape of the area with its flora and fauna has thoroughly changed .Inside the reserve fishing is still possible in some basins as deep as 10-15 mt which were originally used for the extraction of clay to make bricks .

FLORA & FAUNA

Nowadays the flora is very interesting as it includes a lot of rare species. In the rather deep stretches of water there is a fragmentary vegetation that partly floats on the surface,formed by cladium and/or marsh ferns, colonies of wate-lilies and, though rarely, of nenuphar. In the “lametta” , towards the lake, there is a submerged prairie.
The main characteristic of the vegetation is constituted by bamboo sticks. These are very high perennial plants with a big horizontal rhizome from which stem the stalks, from 1 to 3 meters high. The rhizome supplies a drug with sudoriferous and diuretic properties, but in the past this plant was used by local populations for its long and dense panicle.

There are lots of animal species in the natural reserve: 17 nesting species, 8 sedentary species and 9 summer visitors that are present during the breeding season from April to September. Wild ducks, herons, grebes are the most commonly seen, though other birds live in the reserve: shovelers, snipes, waterhens, river nightingales.

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