Author: Reina Kornmayer

Balancing Growth and Green: The Urgent Need for Sustainable Development Amidst Wetland Decline

In a groundbreaking new report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the alarming trend of wetland decline across the United States has been meticulously documented, shedding light on an environmental crisis that has far-reaching implications not only for biodiversity but for human well-being as well. This comprehensive analysis reveals a worrying acceleration in the loss of these critical habitats, underscoring the urgent need for concerted conservation efforts. Wetlands serve as the lifeblood of our planet’s ecological framework. They are not merely waterlogged spaces but vibrant ecosystems that play a pivotal role in water purification, flood control, carbon sequestration, and as biodiversity hotspots. Despite their undeniable importance, wetlands have been vanishing at an alarming rate due to urban expansion, agriculture, climate change, and pollution.

The USFWS report highlights several key factors contributing to the decline. Among them, urban development stands out as a significant culprit. As cities expand, the conversion of land for housing, infrastructure, and commerce often comes at the expense of wetland areas. Additionally, agricultural practices, including the drainage of wetlands for crop production, have led to substantial losses. The impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels and increased frequency of extreme weather events, exacerbate the situation, further threatening these fragile ecosystems.

The consequences of wetland degradation are profound and far-reaching. Wetlands are among the most productive environments on earth, providing essential services that benefit humanity and the natural world. They act as natural water filters, removing pollutants and sediment from waterways, and they are crucial for water storage, helping to mitigate the impacts of floods and droughts. Moreover, wetlands are vital for carbon storage, playing a significant role in the fight against climate change. Biodiversity loss is another grave consequence of wetland decline. These ecosystems are home to a rich variety of species, many of which are specially adapted to the unique conditions wetlands provide. As wetlands disappear, so too do the species that rely on them, leading to reduced biodiversity and the loss of species critical to ecosystem health.

The USFWS report serves as a clarion call to action, emphasizing the need for robust conservation strategies to halt and reverse the decline of wetlands. Protecting what remains is paramount, and this requires a multi-faceted approach involving government, communities, and individual action. Policy measures such as stronger environmental regulations, incentives for wetland conservation, and the implementation of sustainable land-use practices are critical steps in the right direction. Restoration efforts also play a key role in the recovery of wetland ecosystems. Projects that focus on re-establishing wetland hydrology, replanting native vegetation, and removing invasive species can help restore these areas’ ecological functions and biodiversity. Such efforts, however, require significant investment, expertise, and community involvement to be successful.

Public awareness and education are essential components of wetland conservation. Many people are unaware of the critical role wetlands play in our environment and everyday lives. Increasing public understanding of these ecosystems’ value and the threats they face can foster greater support for conservation initiatives. The USFWS report is a stark reminder of the challenges wetlands face, but it also presents an opportunity to galvanize action. By documenting the continued decline of these vital ecosystems, the report provides a scientific basis for the urgent need for conservation. It is a call to all stakeholders—governments, conservation organizations, communities, and individuals—to come together in a concerted effort to protect and restore wetlands.

The decline of wetlands is a pressing environmental issue with significant implications for biodiversity, climate change mitigation, and human well-being. The latest USFWS report sheds light on this critical issue, providing valuable data that can inform and inspire action. Through a combination of policy measures, restoration projects, and public engagement, it is possible to halt the loss of wetlands and ensure these invaluable ecosystems continue to thrive for generations to come. The time to act is now; the future of our planet’s wetlands—and all the life they support—hangs in the balance.

#WetlandConservation #SustainableDevelopment #EnvironmentalAwareness #HabitatProtection #ClimateAction #Biodiversity #EcoFriendlyLiving #GreenInfrastructure #ConservationEfforts #ProtectOurWetlands

North Carolina’s Weird & Wonderful: Carnivorous Plants

North Carolina is home to many unique species, including 36 species of carnivorous plants. These plants consume small, unsuspecting invertebrates that fall into their traps. Now, you might be wondering, why do these plants eat meat? Don’t they get their food from sunlight through photosynthesis? Well, yes, these plants do photosynthesize, and are able to produce sugars from that process. However, these species live in wet areas with nutrient-deficient soils, thus they have adaptations that allow them to get nutrients from insects, arachnids, and aquatic prey items. There are five groups of carnivorous plants in North Carolina: butterworts, sundews, bladderworts, pitcher plants, and, of course, the Venus flytrap.

Common Butterwort, Pinguicula vulgaris, photo courtesy of Stuart Anthony and the North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

Butterwort species are in the genus Pinguicula, and these plants, found throughout the southeastern United States in very sunny, wet locations, have small leaves with sticky hairs. Often appearing greasy in texture, the leaves form the trap, and insects get stuck in the residue. The struggling of the insect triggers the butterwort to release more of the sticky fluid; once the residue has fully encased the food item, special cells in the leaves will begin releasing digestive enzymes. Believe it or not, this process gets even cooler! Butterworts also release a strong chemical that kills bacteria. This prevents the dead insect from rotting while it is slowly being digested.

A sundew species, photo courtesy of Phil Champion and the North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

Sundews, which are in the genus Drosera, are one of the largest groups of carnivorous plants. In addition to species native to North Carolina, there are sundews found all over the world, found in bogs, fens, and marshes ranging from tropical climates to colder climates. Sundews are similar to butterworts in that their leaves, which are pad-like, are covered in sticky hairs. More struggling results in the fluid stickiness increasing; but instead of fully encasing the insect in a residue, the leaf pads will slowly curl up around the insect before digestion begins. Due to their small size, sundews’ prey items are very tiny, often small gnats and ants.

Swollen Bladderwort, Utricularia inflata, photo courtesy of Robby Deans and the North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

The genus Utricularia contains the bladderworts, and it is the largest genus of carnivorous plants. Aquatic species of bladderworts grow fully submerged, except for the stem and blossom, and they may float freely in the water or attach themselves to a surface. Other bladderwort species that are more tropical are epiphytic, and still other species grow in very wet soil. The bladderworts are unlike any other carnivorous plant in that they have a unique bladder system. These bladders have a trap door covered in tiny hairs. When a prey item touches the hairs, it triggers the trap door to open in a millisecond and the bladder sucks in the prey, closing in about 2.5 milliseconds! So, in about 3.5 milliseconds, the bladderwort has caught its food. How weird and wonderful is that?

Purple Pitcher Plant, Sarracenia purpurea, photo courtesy of David Midgley and the North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

Now pitcher plants, in the genus Sarracenia, are probably some of the more recognizable carnivorous plants in the world. In North Carolina we have the purpurea species, so named because of the color of the flowers and the pitchers themselves. This species is often found in marshes and bogs but is also right at home in wet forest floors and pinelands. The purple pitcher plant’s leaves form pitchers that are open to the sky and collect rainwater. Insects are attracted to little droplets of nectar that are produced along the rim of the pitcher, and as they crawl inward, they encounter tiny hairs that point downwards. This results in a surface that is very easy to climb down, but impossible to climb up! Eventually the insects fall into the pool of water, which also contains digestive enzymes that the plant has produced. What is really cool about the purple pitcher plant is that it is pollinated by a member if the pitcher plant fly genus, Fletcherimyia. The larvae of these flies live in the fluid inside of the pitchers, feeding on some of the insects that have gotten trapped!

The Venus Flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, photo courtesy of Lucy Bradley and the North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox

There is only one more carnivorous plant to discuss: North Carolina’s official state carnivorous plant, the Venus flytrap. Venus flytraps, Dionaea muscipula, are mainly found in southeastern North Carolina, though some small populations have been found in northeastern South Carolina. This plant has specialized, folded leaves covered in large and small hairs. When an insect touches those hairs, it triggers the two halves of the leaf to close around the insect, trapping it. Like the butterwort, special cells on the leaves release digestive enzymes, and in about two weeks, the leaf will reopen and be ready to catch another insect. We North Carolinians love Venus flytraps so much that, not only has it been declared the state carnivorous plant, but there is also a house bill to authorize the Venus Flytrap Specialty License Plate! If House Bill 734 passes, some of the proceeds from each license plate renewal will go towards the Friends of Plant Conservation and the North Carolina Botanical Garden Foundation, which will use the money to fund plant conservation education and research.

The Venus flytrap, and many of the other carnivorous plant species, are endangered. Habitat destruction and overharvesting are the two major threats facing these plants today. These species require specific habitat conditions in which to grow and thrive, and if even one of those conditions is thrown off, the plants will start to decline. Gardening and houseplant fever unfortunately results in wild plants of all kinds, not just carnivorous ones, being poached in order to meet the demand. If you have to have a carnivorous plant, purchase one from a reputable nursery. There are many other amazing plants that share the same habitat needs as the meat-eaters, so consider creating a small bog or marsh garden in your backyard. In North Carolina, nurseries such as Carolina Habitats and Plant Delights can be excellent resources for learning how to recreate plant communities in a garden setting. State cooperative extension offices and their Master Gardeners programs would be a good resource for region-specific knowledge. Finally, if you want to see carnivorous plants in action, plan a trip to Carolina Beach State Park, south of Wilmington, North Carolina. These weird and wonderful plants are sure to make a lasting impression.

Special thanks to the North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox and all of their amazing photographers for the photographs in this blog and for being a source of great information on the many carnivorous plant species in the state. https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/

The Great Dismal Swamp: A Land Rich in Natural and Cultural Resources

Photo courtesy of Only in Your State

Today, the Great Dismal Swamp, located across southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, is a national wildlife refuge encompassing about 112,000 acres. Having once covered over a million acres of the coastal plain, this sprawling system of wetlands is home to black bears, red-cockaded woodpeckers, southern plains bumblebees, Dismal Swamp short-tailed shrews, cricket frogs, pawpaw trees, and many other species of wildlife. A biodiversity hotspot with botanical species from both northern and southern climates, biologists with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge system are hard at work making sure it remains a viable habitat. This involves working with the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to manage the swamp’s hydrology. The natural flow of ground and surface waters within the wetlands was heavily disrupted by the construction of drainage ditches, one of which was commissioned by George Washington, who recognized the economic potential of harvesting timber from within the swamp. That little nugget of knowledge provides us with our first clue that there is more than a rich natural history in the Great Dismal Swamp: there is a rich cultural history as well.

Photo courtesy of Allison Shelley and Smithsonian Magazine

Almost impossible to navigate by canoe or by horseback, the dense quagmire was home to indigenous groups as far back as 6,000 years ago. When European colonists arrived, the surrounding region was turned into farmland and worked by enslaved Africans, enslaved indigenous people, and indentured servants. Those wanting to escape slavery would often head for the swamp, where they were willing to risk running into venomous snakes, mosquito hordes, and the boot-sucking peat muck to secure their freedom. Thus, the Great Dismal Swamp became a stop along the Underground Railroad, where runaway slaves could hide and receive aid from allies on their way to northern states and Canada. The swamp became notorious as a hideout for runaways, and the North Carolina State Assembly even passed the Act to Provide for the Apprehension of Runaway Slaves in the Great Dismal Swamp and for other purposes in 1847. Not everyone who escaped into the swamp chose to leave it behind, though; many formerly enslaved people chose to permanently remain deep within the belly of the swamp. Living on islands, they learned subsistence farming techniques from the dwindling indigenous population. Hunting, fishing, and foraging supplemented the crops they grew, and, according to archaeologist Dan Sayers, they would re-use ancient stone tools that they found in the muck. These communities became known as maroons, and they were often completely isolated from the outside world. References to maroons within the swamp can be found in historical resources dating back to the early 1700s.

Pawpaw tree and fruit, courtesy of Butterfly Gardens to Go

Sayers has become the world’s foremost expert on maroon communities in the Great Dismal Swamp, and one of the ways he and his team located potential cultural sites was by examining maps of the vegetation. Tree species that need higher, drier ground to thrive revealed the locations of “at least 200 habitable islands” within the wetlands, which may have been home to hundreds of maroons. The interpretation of different vegetative communities within the wildlife refuge’s borders provided Sayers with a way to identify habitable tracts of land. This illustrates the point that our natural and cultural resources are intricately linked, and to only focus on the preservation and interpretation of one without the other does us a disservice. More and more, an interdisciplinary approach is required to gain a fuller picture of our past. Written records of maroon life are scarce, which explains why the fields of history and archaeology traditionally overlooked this portion of history. Sayers, though, recognized how archaeology could reveal the swamp’s secrets, and that botanical surveys could point him to the places most likely to have secrets to reveal. Members of the maroon communities would have, undoubtedly, recognized the plant life that signaled higher, drier ground: pawpaw trees require well-drained soil, so they would have only been able to grow on the islands. Producing a large, tropical-like fruit, pawpaws would have been an important seasonal source of food for maroons. So, the next time you visit the Great Dismal Swamp, or any of the other beautiful natural parks and wildlife refuge systems in the country, try to think about how humans of the past interacted with the environment, and how nature impacted them in return. Our parks and wildlife refuge systems still have a lot to reveal about our nation’s cultural heritage.

Photo courtesy of Allison Shelley and Smithsonian Magazine

History Emerges at Jordan Lake, North Carolina

North Carolina has been in a drought for a few months, and it is starting to show in the state’s waterways. At Jordan Lake, local residents and out-of-towners are enjoying a rare glimpse into the history buried beneath the water’s surface. Before the lake was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers, it was a large valley, and humans lived there beginning around 10,000 years ago. In 1982, the Corps began filling it up, and the project was completed in 1983. What many people do not realize is that, prior to the start of excavation work in 1970, there were whole towns in New Hope Valley, as it was once called, full of homes, churches, and farmsteads. While the region had very rich soil that created great farming conditions, the New Hope Valley was prone to flooding, and, after the area was decimated by a hurricane in 1945, the federal government decided to turn it into a reservoir.

Photo Courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

From 1963-1970, the communities in New Hope Valley were abandoned, as the government bought the land and locals were forced to leave their homes, farms, and even graveyards behind. Seaforth, Pea Ridge, and Farrington are just a few of the small towns that were wiped off of the map, but in November of this year these ghost towns began to emerge. Historians flocked to the site, along with the descendants of the people who used to live there, to catch a glimpse of and document the decaying structures and artifacts. The history and physical location of those communities has yet to be studied in an archaeological context. Before the reservoir was filled, archaeological excavations were performed to record the history and salvage any artifacts deemed historically significant. But those excavations, which started in 1978 and ended a year later, were less concerned with the modern villages and were more concerned with the prehistoric context.

Photo Courtesy of WRAL News

Today, descendants of the farmers and landowners forced to leave New Hope Valley are interested in documenting what they can of their more recent past. If this drought continues, there could be the potential for cultural resource management (CRM) work at Jordan Lake. The North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, and their private CRM partners, may be able to map out the location of structures, roadways, and even cemeteries. Contacting the descendant communities to get their oral histories and any written or photographic evidence of how the towns used to look can help piece together what has been lost. Our heritage and culture are wrapped up in our homes, wrapped up in where we are from; at Jordan Lake, some forgotten communities are emerging, if only for a short time. We should not let this fleeting treasure trove of history go to waste.

Photo Courtesy of WRAL News

The Endangered Species Act is 50 Years Old, but It Came Too Late for Some

In mid-October of this year, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that they will be delisting 21 species from the Endangered Species Act. This follows the Fish and Wildlife Service’s September 2021 proposal of 23 species that they were seeking to delist. Were these species removed because their populations rebounded? Nope. They went extinct, though two of the originally proposed 23 species, a Hawaiian perennial herb and the ivory-billed woodpecker, are in a limbo state while the service analyzes more data. What stood out about this list was the taxonomy of the species: most are birds and mussels. The Hawaiian Islands were hit especially hard, as eight out of the ten bird species were only found there. Habitat destruction, diseases, and invasive predators decimated the populations by the mid-1900s. By the time they were placed on the Endangered Species List, it was already too late. According to the American Bird Conservancy, all but one of the species was already extinct by then, and efforts to capture and breed the remaining members of the Po’ouli species failed. The same is true for the eight freshwater mussel species, with ranges throughout the southeastern United States. They were listed as endangered around the same time they were last seen in the wild. Martha Williams, the Director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife, stated that she hoped this would help the public recognize the importance of starting conservation efforts earlier. The Endangered Species Act turned 50 years old this year, and during that time it has been credited with saving 99% of the listed species from extinction. 

You may ask, what is the big deal about a bunch of birds and mussels? Birds, and many of the species native to Hawaii, often act as pollinators. Many also spread the seeds and control pest species of insect. Some plant species are now struggling, because their main pollinators and seed dispersal agents are no longer present. If those plants are unable to adapt to this change in their environment, they too may eventually go extinct. On Hawaii the loss of those species is even more devastating because of their cultural significance to the indigenous people. As for why you should care about a bunch of freshwater mussels, our question for you is: do you want clean water or dirty water? Mussels filter the water in the rivers and streams in which they live. A tank full of water with mud and algae will be noticeably cleaner a few hours after mussels are placed inside. Today, though, in many rivers and streams, it is not just algae or mud that the mussels are filtering out: it is also chemicals from fertilizers, production plants, and medications that people have flushed down their toilets. These chemicals are not only dangerous for us but are also dangerous for the mussels. These creatures are incredibly sensitive to contaminants, so it does not take much to throw a population out of whack. On top of the increasing levels of pollution in our waterways, most species of mussel need species of fish in order to reproduce. An adult mussel will lure a fish towards it, and when it is close enough the mussel releases hundreds or even thousands of mussel larvae. The fish carry them around until they are big enough to survive on their own. The problem is that mussel species often only have a handful or even a single fish species with which they engage in this parasitic relationship. Due to water pollution, overharvesting, warming waters, and the damming of waterways, fish populations are also on the decline. 

What should be taken away from this delisting is that the species that are protected are not being protected for frivolous reasons, but oftentimes have an impact on resources that impact humans. Conservation actions should be taken earlier to give individual species a better chance. As their populations grow, our natural resources improve and grow as well, and can be sustainably utilized for generations to come.