World Wetlands Day 2015

Editorial by Lou Rose, Board President, Watsonville Wetlands Watch

If you’ve never explored the serene beauty of our local wetlands, consider taking a walk on the trails through the Watsonville wetlands on World Wetlands Day, February 2. Ninety percent of California’s wetlands have been lost since intensive human development began. The wetlands of Watsonville are a valuable example of a wetlands ecosystem; a network of six individual sloughs that altogether drains a 12,500-acre watershed and comprise one of the largest freshwater wetlands on the coast of California.

Coastal wetlands like ours play a role in the climate change drama, binding the shoreline together, preventing erosion and slowing storm surges, which increases resilience to climate change. Wetlands help replenish freshwater aquifers, and purify and filter harmful waste from water. Yet coastal wetlands are vulnerable, caught between the rising oceans and the pressure of human development.

The combination of wetlands, marsh, and grasslands in Watsonville provides foraging and breeding habitats for a rich variety of wildlife, including five federally-listed endangered species and 16 state-listed species of special concern.

In 1992, the nonprofit Watsonville Wetlands Watch was established to begin preserving, restoring, and fostering appreciation of the wetlands. Since then, this small group of professionals and volunteers has improved and maintained hundreds of acres of native grasslands, marshes, wetlands, and wildlife habitat. The organization’s partners in this ongoing effort include cities, the county, the California Coastal Commission, the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County and many other public and private agencies.

The theme of World Wetlands Day 2015, “Wetlands for our Future,” is fitting for Santa Cruz County. Young people will one day be charged with protecting our wetlands ecosystem, but they must first understand its value. The Watsonville Wetlands Watch helps by bringing environmental education and leadership training to more than 2000 students in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District each year.

You can learn more about the Watsonville wetlands at www.watsonvillewetlandswatch.org. There you’ll find beautiful photographs and fascinating wetlands information as well as a calendar of other wetlands activities. Watsonville Wetlands Watch offers free lectures, birding excursions, weekend restoration activities and many, many opportunities to combine one’s love of nature and the environment with meaningful collective action.  I hope you will be inspired to join us in our mission to protect, preserve, and appreciate the wetlands of the Pajaro Valley.