You too can be a Swamp Person - 237

I love swamps, bogs, and wetlands. This is where water meets the land and life flourishes. This is where ducks and bugs and the big bucks hang out. Maybe I am a swamp person!

I am not a Cajun, one of the French Canadians who relocated to the bayous of the Mississippi Delta and call Louisiana home.

I am certainly not like my Army Ranger bud who, for fun, swims and slithers through swamps at night to sneak up on whatever he can find.  I love swamps but maybe I am not a true swamp person.

Historically, swamp people were people escaping persecution like our American Indians and Blacks. It is very difficult to subdue swamp people. The Seminole Indians of Florida, who the US Government spent tens of millions to kill, subdue, and remove, were able to hold out for years fighting guerrilla warfare from the Everglades. In fact, about 200 never surrendered, surviving by remaining deep within their protector, the swamp.

There are European swamp people too like the Dutch. Ingenious Italians created whole cities on top of swamps to defend themselves from barbarians. The most famous swamp city is Venice.

The fate of US wetlands has been largely the same as that of the American Indian. There are not many when compared to pre-1942.  Most wetlands have been eliminated by draining to create farmland. One of the largest wetlands was the Great Black Swamp of Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie. It was solid, or should I say a liquid region, 40 by 120 miles. It only exists today in fragments.

Wetlands are the most environmentally degraded ecosystems on earth. Have we been poor stewards of the earth when we remove the “wet” from wetlands? What good are they anyway?

From Wikipedia: “Wetlands contribute a number of functions that benefit people. These are called ecosystem services and include water purification, groundwater replenishment, stabilization of shorelines and storm protection, water storage and flood control, PROCESSING of carbon (carbon fixation, decomposition, and sequestration), other nutrients and pollutants, and support of plants and animals.[9] Wetlands are reservoirs of biodiversity and provide wetland products[JT1] .”

Lake and river shorelines are wetland too. There is a movement to re-naturalize these interface zones where earth and water meet. If shorelines are improved fertilizer runoff from our lawns, crop fields, and golf courses can be greatly reduced. By naturalizing strips of land along water, we create protective buffers. These buffers help to purify the water before these impurities end up in our rivers, lakes, groundwater reservoirs, or accumulating downstream in dead zones.

Because swamps are natural purifiers and we have eliminated so much swamp acreage, places like Lake Erie and the Gulf of Mexico are in trouble. At these destinations ecosystems suffer eutrophication. Eutrophication is a long term which means “dead”. Each summer phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers flood into Lake Erie which suffocates whatever lives in their path. The current dead zone where the Mississippi meets the Gulf of Mexico is a marine graveyard of 3,275 square miles. This vast region was once rich in aquatic life.

The good news is we are becoming aware of our mistakes, and we are wising up to the role wetlands can play in climate mitigation and adaptation.

Because wetland vegetation is generally a net carbon absorber, wetlands, if protected and expanded, have an opportunity to play a role in mitigating climate change.

Because wetlands are places where excess water can be safely held and slowly released to the waterways, wetlands have become an important adaptation tool to meet the mega rains which are flooding the earth region by region.

What can we do? We can create green stormwater retention areas in our yards and parks. These are especially effective near parking lots or buildings with large roofs. In the recent Nature Conservancy “Field Notes from Michigan” the Sacred Heart Church in Detroit built a beautiful Green Storm Water Garden to capture roof and parking lot rainwater. The creators were not only practical and resourceful, but they did the improvement with gardening artistic flair pleasing to the eye.

While not as sensitive to aesthetics as the Sacred Heart project, the Kwik Trip in Ironwood and Bessemer have mini wetlands which will perform the same essential function to capture excess rain. This is intelligent planning.

If you are lucky enough to live on a lake, river, or swamp you have the opportunity of improving your shoreline. A shoreline rich in native plants on land and in the water supports twice the fish, birds and critters compared to a sand beach or lawn. Plus, the vegetation absorbs much more carbon and slows, if not stops, toxic runoff.

If you are a waterfowl hunter you probably already contribute to creating and saving wetlands. In fact, most of the wetland already protected is the result of conservation minded hunters.

If you do not hunt, you can join environmental organizations like the Nature Conservancy which uses donations to acquire, resuscitate, and expand wetlands. Environmental organizations also support education programs. Often these groups organize environmental workshops to get out and improve the wetlands while having almost as much fun as my Ranger friend.

Climate Change is our wakeup call. It is time to examine how we treat all earth, especially our wetlands.  Are we a species focused on exploitation and short-term profit or are we caretakers given dominion over the earth to tend God’s Garden? Will the dead zones of Erie and the Gulf of Mexico expand, or will we start here to reverse the dying. We have the resources and the smarts to turn these areas and all wetlands into vibrant giving gardens.

If you are a concerned hunter or wildlife lover you know what it takes to be a good steward of land.  It is nice to know when you help protect wetlands you are also a good steward of the planet. 

You may want to let your curiosity run a little wild. You may be a person on a mission to save and protect wetlands and the planet.

Great wetland reading and organizations:

The 4th of July New Yorker article by Annie Prouix, “Swamps Can Protect Us Against Climate Change If We Only Let Them.”

Wisconsin Wetlands: Wisconsinwetlands.org

Wisconsin Healthy Lakes: Healthylakeswi.com

Michigan Wetlands: miwetlands.org

Michigan DNR wetlands site: michiganwetlands.com

Michigan Shorelines: mishorelinepartnership.org

How To Restore Your Shore: dnr.state.mn.us/rys

Ducks Unlimited

The Nature Conservancy

NOAA is active protecting wetlands, search “NOAA wetlands”

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