Wetlands: Our Most Valuable Water Resource

One of the most underappreciated and vital water resources are the marshes, swamps, bogs and fens of North America. These ecosystems not only provide water filtration and storage for human populations, they also are home to a huge number of plant and animal species. Other functions of wetlands include pollution control, ground water recharge, drought mitigation, shoreline protection and recreational opportunities. (Beder 2009) Yet despite these benefits, wetlands have been and are still being destroyed at an alarming rate. The blog post Wetland Restoration: The Best Alternative to Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies by Jeremy Jacquot highlights another reason that wetlands should be protected: they are a valuable form of carbon storage. Perhaps this benefit will finally be the key to wetland survival.

Carbon is stored primarily in the peat soils formed in undisturbed wetlands. Plants photosynthesize throughout their lifetime, absorbing carbon dioxide. When they die, the carbon containing plant matter settles to the bottom of the marsh to form a peat soil. Oxygen does not reach this submerged soil so decomposition occurs very slowly, resulting in little release of that stored carbon dioxide. Now that it is known what a valuable combatant to global warming wetlands can be, there needs to be a way to protect them from further degradation.

Many conservation methods have been attempted throughout the world. One technique is to give people the right to a resource, because if they own it, or are entitled to it, they are more likely to protect it for the future. Communally owned wetlands are degraded because it benefits the individual to use them up before someone else does. This entitlement puts a market on conservation because people would be able to buy and sell these resource rights. Although it may seem that this would give the environment some standing in an economic world, tradable rights to a resource actually degrade the environment further. This will be outlined in the following example of attempted wetland conservation.

The most common method of wetland conservation, as outlined in Sharon Beder’s Environmental Principles and Policies, is the use of Wetland Mitigation Banking. This form of economic environmental protection attempts to preserve the net amount of wetland remaining. Compensation for building can be achieved through the restoration of another wetland. This is challenging for large companies to do, because they lack the expertise. Instead, another company can improve and remediate a wetland independently and then sell the credits earned to the large company. In theory this is intended to create large tracks of protected wetland and stop the net loss of this valuable resource.

This is not a perfect solution. If you totally destroy 5 hectares of marsh and then remediate 5 hectares somewhere else, there is still a net lost of 5 hectares of wetland. Also, the benefit of the wetland is locally important. Usually companies pay for the improvement of a wetland that is far from the area that has been destroyed, maybe even in another watershed. This leaves no purification, flood protection or biodiversity for the area with the brand new shopping mall. Location also is important when considering what species can live in it, and even what kind of wetland it is. If all of the restored and protected wetlands are located in one spot, the diversity of many smaller marshes, bogs, fens and swamps is lost. Finally, there are some wetlands that are much cheaper to create and/or restore. Larger ponds with a rim of wetland are far easier to create but are worth the same amount of credit as deep peat swamps. The more ecologically diverse and beneficial types, such as bogs and swamps, are far more expensive. They are also the best at carbon dioxide absorption.

I think that if resources such as wetlands are going to be bought and sold on a market, there needs to be a much better system of evaluating their dollar value. There must be some division between the types of wetlands, and the services they provide can not be undestimated. It seems that in most cases the environment is devalued when put on the market. To improve ecomonic conservation, valuation methods need to be changed. Mitigation banking has some merit and could probably be reformed into a much better method of environmental conservation. Restored wetlands would have to be located in the same region as the wetland that was destroyed and the replacement for a wetland would have to be more than just that area restored somewhere else. Maybe twice as much restoration in exchange for the complete annihilation of a wetland would suffice.

Although I hate to think that wetlands might one day all be individually owned and not for the enjoyment of the public, it does make sense that they would be better looked after that way. Although many would litter on a public beach, they probably won’t dump garbage on their own dock. It would work the same way for wetlands.

Overall, the mitigation banking system has many faults, but if it was implemented for the purpose of protecting wetlands then it is a step in the right direction. We depend on these riparian ecosystems more than most realize, making it worth the effort to protect what is left. Hopefully the need to offset global warming will give wetland conservation priority in the years to come.

- Amy Adair

References

Beder, S. (2006). Environmental Principles and Policies. Sterling: Earthscan.

Jacquot, J. E. (2009, October 22). Wetland Restoration: The Best Alternative to Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies. Retrieved November 21, 2009, from treehugger: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/10/wetland-restoration-ccs.php