"Although they are the end product of thousands of years of peat growth, other than the immediate surface growth, they contribute nothing towards nature's cleansing actions any more than the oil and gas deposits found at depth do."

Their cleansing properties are still intact in that they hold carbon they've absorbed over time until the bogs are disturbed where it is then released into the air...and we're not even talking about burning it yet. Even if we were to assume that only the surface portion of it was valuable to the environment you still wouldn't be able to access the material below without affecting the above...and I doubt if anyone would even consider it. They usually drain the bogs and that alone affects the wetlands and exposes the carbon.