Page 32 - AT

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 12 November 2019
Bringing the world's buried wetlands back from the dead

By MATTHEW BROWN increased in acreage since
JAMES BROOKS the 1970s, according to
Associated Press Ramsar.
HINDOLVESTON, England Barton Schott, a third-
(AP) — The ghosts are all generation farmer in the
around the gently rolling small community of Kulm,
farmlands of eastern Eng- North Dakota, recently in-
land. But you have to know stalled networks of perfo-
where to look. rated pipes beneath some
These are not the kind of of his fields to drain off the
phantoms that scare or standing water. He must
haunt — they are ghost offset the losses under fed-
ponds. Over the years, eral regulations, installing a
landowners buried them, berm across a low area in
filling in wetlands so they different field to create a
had more land for planting small pond.
crops and other needs, or The guiding principle is to
let their ponds fade away have "no net loss" of U.S.
with neglect. Along with wetlands. A similar tactic
those ponds, they erased has been adopted in Chi-
entire ecosystems — and na.
contributed to the decline Yet in both nations, scien-
of wetlands worldwide. Canada geese swim on a prairie pothole near Lake City, S.D., on Saturday, June 22, 2019. tists are concerned that
The result: an array of en- Associated Press the approach papers over
vironmental calamities, significant differences be-
ranging from rising floods to to life," says Nick Anema, found — wetland-depen- lands carved into the earth tween natural wetlands
species hurtling toward ex- a farmer in nearby Dere- dent species threatened by glaciers some 10,000 and those created by hu-
tinction. ham who has restored sev- with extinction, more se- years ago can be an ad- mans. That's because con-
There are some who are en ponds on his property. vere flooding and the re- versary. They bog down structing ponds or reser-
trying to reclaim these lost "You've got frogs and toads lease of huge amounts of tractors and can kill young voirs with water year-round
waterbodies. In eastern and newts, all the insects the greenhouse gas car- crops, leaving patches of doesn't fulfill the same eco-
England, a motley team of like mayflies, dragonflies, bon dioxide. lifeless stalks. logical role as the smaller
farmers, university research- damselflies. ... You can't re- Climate change threatens Some farmers steer around wetlands they replace.
ers and conservationists is ally beat a pond." to worsen the problem. them, planting in swirling "People brag about the
digging into the region's But the battle for the wet- Warmer temperatures and patterns to avoid wet ar- fact that there's been no
barley and wheat fields to lands is a struggle. While ef- changing rainfall patterns eas. Other times, the wet- net loss. But what they've
turn back the clock. forts are under way to stem can trigger drought, lead- lands are removed, often done is destroy natural wet-
With chain saws, an exca- losses and regain some of ing to more pumping of to make way for corn. lands and created artificial
vator and plenty of sweat, what's been lost, wetlands water reserves that would Despite their mind-bog- ones," says Stuart Pimm, a
it takes just a few hours to around the world continue otherwise feed surface gling numbers — several Duke University professor.
resurrect one dying pond to be filled in and plowed wetlands, scientists say. million potholes are spread ___
near Hindolveston, a thou- over. "We now know the value across a region that cov- Since the start of the 20th
sand-year-old village not ___ of wetlands, and we know ers portions of five states century, 75% of the United
far from the North Sea. They Almost 90% of the world's with increasing precision and three Canadian prov- Kingdom's ponds have
fell trees and shrubs, then wetlands disappeared over how many wetlands we're inces— these wetlands been lost. Nick Anema de-
start digging until reaching the past three centuries, losing. The next step is for are steadily blinking out. scribes how his view of farm-
their goal: an ancient pond according to the Ramsar the governments to act," One by one, they're being ing differs markedly from his
bottom that once support- Convention, an organiza- says Royal Gardner, direc- drained or plowed under. father's, who regarded the
ed insects, aquatic plants tion formed around a 1971 tor of the Institute for Bio- Only human-made wet- natural world as an obsta-
and the birds and animals treaty to protect wetlands. diversity Law and Policy at lands buck the trend to- cle to overcome. For Nick
that feed on them. And the losses have accel- Stetson University in Florida. ward global decline. Rice Anema, farming and pres-
"As soon as they get water erated since the 1970s. ___ paddies, reservoirs and ervation are inextricably
and light, they just spring The consequences are pro- A few hours of heavy rain agricultural stock ponds all linked.q
in North Dakota are all it
takes to transform the dry,
cracked earth of the prai-
rie into thousands upon
thousands of pocket-sized
wetlands.
The rain pools in shallow de-
pressions known as prairie
potholes and quickly flush-
es out insects from beneath
the soil.
Each pothole becomes a
haven for a pair of ducks.
Two blue-winged teals
dabble on one pothole. On
the next pothole are two
A wetland sits next to farmland near Hindolveston, Dereham, more ducks, then two more Brad Sands surveys his cattle on a restored wetland and grass-
eastern England, on Friday, Sept. 13, 2019. and so on to the horizon. land project near Ellendale, N.D., on Thursday, June 20, 2019.
Associated Press But to farmers, these wet- Associated Press