Wholesale Nursery Blog

Funding from the EPA will be used by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation to create a stronger protection program for the state’s wetland plants. Their goal is to create a variety of mapping, monitoring, and restoration projects, all with creating a stronger presence of wetland conservation statewide.

“Wetlands are incredibly important to the health and well-being of our environment, and provide tangible benefits to our communities,” said Robert Varney, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office. “Wetlands help store floodwaters, purify and increase our drinking water supplies, provide habitat for wildlife and recreation for citizens. We’re proud to work to improve wetland protection here in New England.”

The EPA’s Wetland Program Development Grants have been awarded for the past two decades to state agencies, federally recognized Native American tribes, local governments, and interstate associations seeking to improve wetland protection. Recently, the EPA has identified three priority areas for grant applicants to address in their proposed projects:

•    To develop a comprehensive wetland monitoring and assessment program;
•    To improve the effectiveness of wetland compensatory mitigation; and
•    To refine the protection of particularly vulnerable wetland types, such as vernal pools.

The DEC will continue to work on improving its overall wetlands protection program. Their plan includes:

•    Strengthening and refining identification and assessment of wetlands not identified on the Vermont Significant Wetland Inventory Maps;
•    Making rule changes to bring these vulnerable wetlands under the protection of the state’s wetland rules;
•    Updating wetland maps and inventories,
•    Developing protocols for on-going updates to those maps;
•    Continuing to develop and refine protocols to assess the ecological health of wetlands; and
•    Developing the best management practices for successful restoration and compensatory mitigation projects.

The DEC grants are part of a region-wide funding pool for wetland conservation grants in New England totaling more than $1.7 million. Other projects to protect wetland plants are being funded by EPA in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

Wetlands promote biodiversity and flood control and are also essential to maintaining a livable climate. The marshes, peat bogs, swamps, river deltas, mangroves, tundra, lagoons and river floodplains that make up a wetland ecosystem provide many irreplaceable protections for both animals and humans.

The immediate, yet often overlooked aspect of wetlands and wetland plants is their ability to provide reservoirs and regulators of water.  The wetland plants act as a natural filter, cleansing water of organic pollutants, capture sediment, and recycle nutrients. In addition, the plants protect riverbanks and seashores from erosion.

Because wetland plants are high in nutrients, they are also inviting habitats for a large array of animals, ranging from small organisms to fish and other water life, which in turn feed larger mammals and birds. Wetland ecosystems are also typically high in carbon, by trapping organic material in low-oxygen conditions.

The benefit of having this trapped carbon is that it regulates our climate. The downside of this is the history in which wetland ecosystems have been destroyed. In the past 100 years, some 60% of wetlands worldwide, and up to 90% in Europe, have been destroyed. Most of the destruction has been due to drainage for agriculture but there has also been wetland depletion through pollution, dams, canals, groundwater pumping, urban development and peat extraction.

The destruction of wetland ecosystems not only wreak havoc on those animals living in that habitat, but also releases greenhouse gases in the form of CO2 and methane, upsetting the global climate and contributing to global warming. For example, drained tropical swamp forests release an estimated 40 tons of carbon per hectare per year. Drained peat bogs release some 2.5 to 10 tons of carbon.

Wetlands destruction also creates an exponentially destructive cycle. As we warm, the rising temperatures will destroy further wetlands. So far it is estimated that wetlands damage due to rising temperatures has been minimal, but according to UN University scientists: “… a warming of 3° to 4°C could eliminate 85% of all remaining wetlands in the world.”

Currently, the US has largely stopped wetland destruction. In addition, they are spending $700 million over the next twenty years to rehabilitate the wetland ecosystem that is the Florida Everglades. There will be six artificial wetlands created as part of this effort.

On the other hand, wetland ecosystems in the Mediterranean have been dredged and destroyed for over two thousand years to create urban areas and tourist developments. In recent years, it has also been destroyed due to those trying to get rid of malarial mosquitoes.

Much like the destruction of the world’s rainforests, the protection of wetland ecosystems has become a crucial goal for environmentalists. Experts, such as those at the Conference, agree that maintaining current wetlands is infinitely easier and more cost-effective than rehabilitation, especially in developing countries, which may not have the funds for such an endeavor.