Today is World Wetland Day, but since I have written about the importance of wetlands several times and am in the middle of an online stoush with a gentleman who thinks trees won’t help to reduce global warming and that what we really need is more cattle, I won’t go into it too deeply today. I will say that if our wetlands were intact we would be less likely to be having such severe fish kills or flooding, because wetlands slow down water flow when it rains thus helping to prevent erosion and the release of sediment into rivers. This is especially important following any kind of land clearing and particularly in the wake of the terrible bushfires we have been having. Of course wetlands also provide a niche for a great variety of birds and wildlife and act as filters to trap pollutants before they reach our waterways. For similar reasons, we should not be rushing to log what is left of our burnt out bushland either as this too will increase erosion and remove a...
Practising Geographer - nature culture places people