We are flooding a forest - here’s why

we've decided to spend 40 000 euros to dig a ditch and flood this forest right here but why you might ask mostly earth you plant trees and kelp forests and you help wildlife why are you spending all this money to flood a forest do we really need our forest to be underwater this is a fair question which i intend to answer in full in this video but before we get to the flooding parts to properly tell this story we need to go back to the start and i need to tell you about a very important ecosystem wetlands well to be fair wetlands aren't just one ecosystem really technically speaking there are about 31 types of natural wetlands but they can be broadly broken down into two categories marine and coastal wetlands such as marshes mangroves rocky shores or lagoons or inland wetlands such as rivers and streams deltas swamps and floodplain forests wetlands can be found anywhere water interacts with land the special conditions in these areas led many species to evolve and adapt to live in this environment such as dragonflies beavers turtles and herons this means that wetlands are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet and in addition to that they also play a crucial role when it comes to climate change they help fight floods by absorbing the excess water and also droughts by then releasing that water slowly so that it lasts during the dry season they also suck up a lot of carbon from the atmosphere and when i say a lot i mean a lot this is because in forest ecosystems most of the carbon is stored in trees and when they die they decompose and release a lot of the stored carbon back into the atmosphere with a smaller percentage being stored in the ground in wetlands however the opposite happens after a tree or plant dies the water often prevents them from decomposing at the surface allowing the ecosystem as a whole to store a larger portion of this carbon in the soil unfortunately these precious habitats have been destroyed for centuries often drained for farming and tree planting or by having their water courses blocked by a dam upstream this means there are a lot of areas that used to be wetlands but are currently dry so i think now you can see where i am going with all this at most earth we are always looking for the best bang for your buck when it comes to bringing back wilderness the holy grail of this is a relatively small intervention that can kick-start a flood of change and bring back healthy functioning and sustainable ecosystems that can be left alone to be wild and not require any more human management so with this in mind we've been on the lookout for wetland project opportunities for a while and in europe there is no better place to look than the danube this mighty river runs from the black forest to the black sea it flows for more than 2 850 kilometers and supports wetland ecosystems across 10 countries a notable area is the danube delta and the black sea with its maze of streams its pelicans and its wild horses funnily enough i was wild camping in this delta while finishing and launching the website for mossy earth in 2017. good times other important areas along the river's course include the last remaining floodplain forests in places such as slovakia and this is when in 2020 we found broads this fantastic organization has been working in the danube to restore and protect floodplain forests after a lot of calls and work between our biologists we started working together right in the middle of the pandemic fast forward a few years and we have done three projects together such as protecting turtle nests supporting ground squirrel habitat as well as planting more than 60 000 trees in the region however with mossy earth growing in size we recently reached out to them with the idea of doing something bold something bigger it was time to create a wetlands and this is when together we decided we were going to flood a forest the area we are focusing on is here near the town of narada it became dry in the 80s due to the construction of the gabachovo dam upstream in addition to this the remaining water channels were covered by foresters to create suitable conditions for timber production so we are dealing with a forest that is too dense and has some of the wrong species that out-compete wetland dynamics such as carrick species because the environment is much drier than it should be the plan is to dig 650 meters of ditches from here to here and flood these areas in yellow and help kick-start the wetland restoration process our aim is to restore approximately 64 hectares of wetland which is about 120 football fields in size these areas will support a variety of wetland species including plants such as fragmite species carrick species and tipa species and also wildlife such as the pannonian root wall as well as a variety of insects and amphibians which will in turn support many species of birds that prey on them in addition to the habitat creation this project will also help capture carbon based on these two studies we estimate that when the wetland is fully up and running it will capture somewhere between 200 and 355 tons of carbon each year when converted to carbon dioxide this means that every year it will suck about 1290 tons of co2 out of the atmosphere that is the equivalent of you taking 3902 flights between lisbon and london or the full annual footprint of about 189 average europeans each year this means that over the course of the next 50 years we could capture about 64 500 tons of co2 all for a one-off intervention of 40 000 euros our focus at mostly earth remains on rewilding the landscape as the problem we face is a lot bigger than carbon but it is good to know that this will be great to fight climate change as well we will be presenting and discussing this project at our next zoom town hall meeting for mossy earth members so if you remember keep an eye out for the invite if you are not then all i can say is you're missing out with a muscle earth membership you'll be planting trees supporting wildlife and funding projects such as this one on a monthly basis check out the link in the description to learn more as the work begins over the next few months myself and hannah will hop on a train and make our way to slovakia to show you a bit better what is happening on the ground and how the project is progressing we hope you are as excited about this project as we are until next time cheers

Channel: Mossy Earth

Views: 651,058

Keywords: rewilding europe, rewilding, wetlands, wetland, wetlands habitat, wetlands explained, european rewilding, rewilding europe horses, rewilding europe youtube, wetland life, wetlands habitat video, wetland rewilding, wetland restoration, wetland restoration projects, wetlands reduce flooding, wetlands carbon sink, swamps, bogs, marshes, rewilding slovakia, rewilding the danube, danube river, danube delta romania, danube floodplain forests, danube floodplain project, Mossy Earth

Id: bsSuo_iJ3b0

Length: 6min 12sec (372 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 09 2022