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Resuscitating Wetlands a Real Possibility |
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By Katherine Stapp*
Experts
point to success stories in reviving freshwater ecosystems around
the world, noting ''a real shift in attitudes about how conservation
is achieved.''
NEW YORK - When two French ornithologists entered
Mauritania's Diawling National Park in January 1994, they were startled
to find not a vibrant floodplain, but "a dusty salt desert with
a few sickly-looking cows" -- and a grand total of three birds.
Once populated by vast flocks of pelicans and flamingos, the area
was transformed by the construction of a dam where the Senegal River
emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. Its green marshes had become an
expanse of dry, cracked clay interspersed with small dunes and invasive
weeds.
"The Diama dam has been called an African development tragedy,"
said Olivier Hamerlynck, a wetlands consultant who was called in
by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) to find a way to repair the
damage.
"Everyone agreed the wise thing to do was to bring the floods back
by adding sluice gates," he explained at a recent conference on
preserving freshwater ecosystems, hosted by the American Museum
of Natural History in New York.
"But opening them for the first time was still a rather scary moment,
because it was not exactly a run-of-the-mill solution for this kind
of ecosystem," Hamerlynck said.
In the end, the artificial flooding worked beautifully. Fish catches
soared from less than 1,000 kg in 1992 to over 113,000 kg in 1998,
and the delta is now home to more than 35,000 water birds.
Local residents -- who initially expressed some distrust in the
project -- have been involved in monitoring the fluctuating water
levels on their own.
This kind of cooperative management is usually crucial to the success
of attempts to rejuvenate freshwater ecosystems, agreed the experts
from 21 countries gathered for the Apr. 7-8 meeting.
"There has been a real shift in attitudes about how conservation
is achieved," said Edward Allison, a marine biologist with the University
of East Anglia in Britain who now works on poverty alleviation among
aquatic resource users.
The goal is no longer simply creating a pristine environment, but
making it as valuable as possible for the human beings who live
there and are its main custodians, he said.
This means building a network of all stakeholders -- government,
landowners, fisherfolk -- and holding regular discussions with a
minimum of scientific jargon and with a focus on local issues.
In South Africa ''We had good conservation laws, but we didn't have
people to police them'' or to perform water sampling and other critical
measurements, said Pierre de Villiers, hired by the government to
assess the health of the 941,000 sq km Orange-Vaal River Basin,
he started off with a laughably tiny budget and a staff of just
two scientists.
Undaunted, De Villiers set out to find allies in the local farmers,
anglers and academic community.
"You have to get people to want to conserve," he explained. "We
created value in our indigenous fish and a sense of ownership of
the species. And when you save one species, you save others in the
ecosystem."
His efforts paid off, and the National Yellowfish Working Group
now has about 500 members who help enforce poaching laws and abide
by a catch-and-release program.
Freshwater ecosystems like the Orange-Vaal are home to tens of thousands
of species of fish, reptiles, birds and mammals, but are under siege
around the world from pollution, the introduction of exotic species
and human development, especially dams.
Considered the most endangered habitats on land, they are also remarkably
resilient. Sometimes, a simple but creative modification can bring
even the most degraded systems on the globe back to life.
Take the Duck River in the central-eastern U.S. state of Tennessee,
whose 652 native species make it perhaps the most biodiverse waterway
in North America.
Periodic releases of very cold and under-oxygenated water from a
massive upstream dam had decimated the Duck River's mussel population
-- a problem occurring throughout the United States, where 36 mollusk
species have been driven to extinction and more than a third of
those remaining are critically imperiled.
In searching for a tool to stop this mass extinction, scientists
struck on the idea of installing air hoses on the floor of the reservoir,
so that the water discharged would have a higher dissolved oxygen
level, says Paul Johnson, director of the Tennessee Aquarium Institute.
Within a decade, the Duck River had undergone a remarkable recovery,
with mussel abundance increasing ten-fold at some sites.
The experts at last week's meeting in New York stressed that much
more money and attention, especially from governments, needs to
be devoted to wetlands if these success stories are to be replicated,
but most were optimistic that they had turned a corner.
"We have to solve the problem ourselves. And it's becoming clear
that we are finally cracking the impenetrable wall between science
and policy,'' said Brian Richter, director of the Freshwater Initiative
at the U.S.-based Nature Conservancy.
* Katherine Stapp is IPS regional editor
for North America and the Caribbean.
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