By Jon Sweetman, The Conversation US CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Wetlands are areas of land that are covered by water, or have flooded or waterlogged soils. They can have water on them either permanently or for just part of the year.
Whether it’s year-round or seasonal, this period of water saturation produces hydric soils, which contain little or no oxygen. But this doesn’t mean that they are lifeless: Wetlands are full of unique water-loving plants and wildlife that have adapted to wet environments.
Wetlands can take many different forms, depending on the local climate, water conditions and land forms and features. For example, swamps are dominated by woody trees or shrubs. Marshes often have more grasslike plants, such as cattails and bulrushes. Bogs and fens are areas that accumulate peat – deposits of dead and partly decomposed plant materials that form organic-rich soil.
Trillions of dollars in ecological benefits
Wetlands are important environments for many reasons. They provide ecological services whose value has been estimated to be worth more than US$47 trillion per year.
For example, wetlands support very high levels of biodiversity. Scientists estimate that 40% of all species on Earth live or breed in wetlands.
Wetlands are critical homes or stopovers for many species of migratory birds. In the central U.S. and Canada, for example, wetlands in the so-called prairie pothole region on the Great Plains support up to three-quarters of North America’s breeding ducks.
The hunting and conservation group Ducks Unlimited works to conserve prairie pothole wetlands on North America’s Great Plains.
Along with providing important habitat for everything from microbes to frogs to waterfowl, wetlands also work to improve water quality. They can capture surface runoff from cities and farmlands and work as natural water filters, trapping excess nutrients that otherwise might create dead zones in lakes and bays. Wetlands can also help remove other pollutants and trap suspended sediments that cloud water bodies, which can kill aquatic plants and animals.
Because wetlands are often in low-lying areas of the landscape, they can store and slowly release surface water. Wetlands can be extremely important for reducing the impacts of flooding. In some places, water entering wetlands can also recharge groundwater aquifers that are important for irrigation and drinking water.
Wetlands also act as important carbon sinks. As wetland plants grow, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They they die, sink to the bottom of the wetland and decompose very slowly.
Over time, the carbon they contain accumulates in wetland soils, where it can be stored for hundreds of years. Conserving and restoring wetlands is an important strategy for regulating greenhouse gases and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
Resources at risk
Despite the many valuable services they provide, wetlands are constantly being destroyed by draining them or filling them in, mainly for farming and development. Since 1970, the planet has lost 35% of its wetlands, a rate three times faster than the loss of forests.
Destruction and degradation of wetlands has led to the loss of many organisms that rely on wetland habitat, including birds, amphibians, fish, mammals and many insects. As one example, many dragonfly and damselfly species are declining worldwide as the freshwater wetlands where they breed are drained and filled in. A marsh or bog may not look like a productive place, but wetlands teem with life and are critically important parts of our environment.
Disclosure statement Jon Sweetman receives funding from the US EPA for work on wetland restoration. He is affiliated with the Society for Freshwater Science, the Ecological Society of America, and the Society of Wetland Scientists
United Nations Headquarters. Flags of member nations flying at United Nations Headquarters. Dec. 30, 2005. Joao Araujo Pinto.
By Børge Brende, President, World Economic Forum (Public License).
World leaders are gathering in New York for the opening of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly and to discuss the major issues of the day. The list of agenda items is long.
The war in Ukraine continues to rage, energy markets are unstable, global temperatures are rising, and the COVID-19 pandemic lingers as other public health concerns emerge. Meanwhile, inflation has proved to be ubiquitous, burdening consumers, businesses, and governments worldwide.
To address these challenges, global leaders will likely stress the need for strengthening cooperation within, what the UN Secretary-General has called, today’s “fractured world”. The question is: at a time when fragmentation appears to be increasing, what can global cooperation, practically, look like?
Thankfully, we have examples. Because despite challenging headwinds, there are instances—pockets—of collaboration that are not only promising but offer insight into what makes cooperation possible, and even durable.
Fruitful collaboration tends to be characterised by three factors: the need is urgent, the area for collaboration is specific, and the benefits are clear.
Climate action is perhaps the most salient example of each of these.
The urgency of addressing global warming is undeniable. Climate change is increasingly wreaking havoc worldwide, causing immense economic and human suffering. The devastating flooding in Pakistan is the latest example of lives being lost due to more intense weather patterns. This is why the UN raised the alarm earlier this year, stating in its latest climate report that the time for action to avoid catastrophic global warming is “now or never.”
As a result of the urgency, there are specific actions needed. World leaders have developed benchmarks that, if achieved in time, could mitigate the negative effects of climate change. This includes efforts to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and hit net-zero emissions by 2050. Such a reduction, experts hope, could limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. So far, over 70 countries, which account for 76% of global emissions, have created timelines for reaching net-zero.
And the benefits of collaborating on climate change are clear. We know the effects of a warming planet respect no border, so reaching our climate objectives can only happen when parties work together. Moreover, the transition to green energy systems—key to combatting climate change—is expected to generate over 10 million global jobs this decade.
All this is why 196 parties came together in 2015 to adopt the Paris Agreement and agreed last year at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow (COP26) to increase carbon-cutting commitments.
Climate action also offers evidence that countries can compartmentalise and prioritise collaboration on a specific issue, despite disagreements elsewhere.
The United States and China, for instance, have shown a willingness to coordinate. Last year at COP26, the two countries issued a joint declaration that articulated the “seriousness and urgency of the climate crisis” and outlined areas in which both sides would take cooperative action.
More recently, at the World Economic Forum’s May 2022 Annual Meeting in Davos, US and Chinese climate envoys reaffirmed climate cooperation between their two countries. To be sure, this collaboration has hit road bumps, with talks recently suspended. But US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry has expressed hope they would resume because climate action “is the one area that should not be subject to interruption because of other issues that do affect us.”
It is also worth remembering that even during the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union coordinated environmental protection policies, specifically on guidelines around air and water pollution, environmental preservation and general mechanisms for tracking the changing climate.
Importantly, we do not need to wait on the side-lines for these three elements—urgency, specificity, and beneficial outcomes—to appear on their own. Instead, from tackling the COVID-19 pandemic to bolstering the global economy to unlocking the benefits of new technology, leaders can build momentum toward cooperation by identifying and advancing each of these elements.
There is one other factor that makes cooperation promising when it takes place. That is, inclusivity.
Partnerships between businesses, governments, and civic organizations are helping advance important efforts in battling climate change. Over 7,000 companies, 1,000 educational institutions and 1,000 cities have joined the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign to cut global emissions by 50% by 2030, which the World Economic Forum is helping advance. This type of widespread collaboration not only makes positive outcomes more likely but serves as a binding force among parties that improves durability.
Tackling the world’s challenges is no easy task. This is why we must remain on the lookout for early signs of where collaboration is possible—and shape the context so that it then becomes likely. The stakes are simply too high to allow disagreements elsewhere to hamstring progress around crucial issues.
Americans don’t agree on much these days, but many feel that the U.S. is on the wrong track and the future is bleak. In a time of unprecedented division, rising inequality and intensifying climate change, it’s easy to feel that progress is impossible.
In fact, models exist all around us for building safer and more equitable spaces where people can thrive.
The organizations that we profile are small, but they make big impacts by crafting alternatives to neoliberal capitalism – an approach to governing that uses austere economic ideas to organize society. Neoliberalism aims to put government in service of corporations through measures such as deregulating markets, privatizing industries and reducing public services.
Here are three groups we see building something better.
Humans being, not humans buying
Some groups build better systems by rejecting neoliberalism’s hyperindividualism. Individualistic logic tells people that they can make the biggest changes by voting with their dollars.
But when people instead see how they can create real political changes as part of communities and collective systems, amazing things can happen. One example is the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, one of the poorest areas in the U.S.
Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation leaders describe how they are drawing on their people’s history and legacy to build a strong and healthy community.
Thunder Valley focuses on healing from daily traumas, such as poverty and high suicide rates. Its goals include teaching the Lakota language across generations, empowering young people to become community leaders and promoting food sovereignty by raising food for the community in greenhouses and gardens.
Thunder Valley’s other programs are designed to create community and security in ways that lift up Lakota approaches. For example, its housing initiative works to increase access to affordable housing and provides financial coaching. Homes are built and neighborhoods are designed according to Lakota traditions. The organization views home ownership as a way to strengthen community connections rather than simply building individual wealth.
Thunder Valley’s programs also include a demonstration farm and a Lakota immersion Montessori school. In 2015, President Barack Obama recognized the organization’s work to heal and build a multigenerational community as a Promise Zone – a place building innovative collaborative spaces for community development.
Claiming space by making music
Brass and percussion street bands play for free in many U.S. communities. They form mainly in cities and are deeply linked to contemporary urban justice issues.
Acoustic and mobile, these bands play without stages to elevate them or sound systems separating musicians from audience. They invite crowds to join the fun. They may play alongside unions and grassroots groups at political protests, or in parades or community events.
The common factor is that they always perform in public spaces, where everyone can participate. Street bands create bridges across social divides and democratize spaces, while inviting play and camaraderie amid huge social challenges.
Band leader and composer Jon Batiste leads a peaceful protest music march through the streets of New York on June 12, 2020, following the death of George Floyd while being detained by police in Minneapolis.
In the 19th century, brass bands flourished all over the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S. South, street bands emerged from benevolent societies – social organizations that helped free and enslaved Black Americans cope with financial hardships. These groups eventually morphed into “social aid and pleasure clubs,” the forces behind New Orleans’ famous parades.
Today, the brass band movement convenes yearly through the HONK! Festival in cities across the country such as Boston; Providence, Rhode Island; and Austin, Texas. Drawing on a tradition of protest, HONK! events are designed to assert that performers and ordinary people have a right to occupy public space, as well as to disrupt state or corporate events.
Affordable community-based energy
Other groups find ways to build economic systems that serve communities rather than private companies or industries.
That’s the goal of the Indigenized Energy Initiative, a community-owned, nonprofit solar cooperative in Cannon Ball, North Dakota. The organization was founded following protests on the Standing Rock Reservation against the Dakota Access Pipeline, which carries oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois.
Indigenized Energy’s executive director, Cody Two Bears, emerged from Standing Rock protests aiming to build the first solar farm in oil-dependent North Dakota. The organization aims to provide low-cost solar energy for all community members, promoting energy independence.
Today, the Cannon Ball Community Solar Farm has 1,100 solar panels and a 300-kilowatt generating capacity – enough to power all of Cannon Ball’s homes. The farm sells its power into the state grid, earning enough to offset the electricity bills of the community’s veteran and youth centers.
Longer-term goals include building tribally owned transmission lines, installing solar panels on tribal homes and community buildings and expanding support for solar power in North Dakota.
A picture worth a thousand words. See how IEI is leveraging the power of renewable energy as a means to diminish poverty, mitigate climate change, and promote a self-determined restoration of sovereignty and hope to Indigenous communities.
— Indigenized Energy Initiative (@Indigenized_IEI) July 26, 2022
Building better systems
We see similarities among these organizations and others in our book. Initiatives like commmunity-owned solar cooperatives and collective models for home ownership and neighborhood planning aim to build economic systems that meet community needs and treat people equitably. Instead of finding answers in individual consumption or lifestyle changes, they build collective solutions.
At the same time, communities across the U.S. have different views of what constitutes a good life. In our view, acknowledging different experiences, goals and values is part of the work of building a shared future.
In recent years, many scholars have pointed out ways in which neoliberalism has failed to produce effective solutions to economic, health, environmental and other challenges. These critiques invite a deeper question: Are people capable of remaking the world to prioritize relationships with one another and with the planet, instead of relationships to wealth? We believe the cases in our book show clearly that the answer is yes.
Authors:
Stephanie Malin Associate Professor of Sociology; Co-Founder, Center for Environmental Justice at CSU, Colorado State University
Meghan Elizabeth Kallman Assistant Professor of International Development, UMass Boston
Disclosure statement Stephanie Malin has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Colorado Water Center, the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (a branch of NIH), the Rural Sociological Society, and CSU School of Global Environmental Sustainability.
Meghan Elizabeth Kallman is a Democrat representing District 15 (Pawtucket, North Providence) in the Rhode Island Senate. She is a co-founder of Conceivable Future, a women-led network of Americans bringing awareness to the threat climate change poses to reproductive justice and demanding an end to US fossil fuel subsidies.
