Wetlands Quotes

“Thoreau the “Patron Saint of Swamps” because he enjoyed being in them and writing about them said, “my temple is the swamp… When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most impenetrable and to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum… I seemed to have reached a new world, so wild a place…far away from human society. What’s the need of visiting far-off mountains and bogs, if a half-hour’s walk will carry me into such wildness and novelty.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings

“Everything that’s sexy — mussed hair, straps that fall off the shoulder, a sweaty glow on the face — is a bit askew, yes, but touchable.”
― Charlotte Roche, Feuchtgebiete

“As long as the wetland looks pretty and also attracts ducks from time to time, it is regarded as a complete success. An attractive appearance is fine and is of considerable concern in urban developments.

It is the pretense that such wetlands also create rich habitats which is objectionable, when urban development is the primary cause of loss of diversity in a wide range of ecosystems around cities including wetlands.

The one ecologically positive thing that most created wetlands do a reasonable job of is water treatment, because the limited range of plants likely to survive the semi-toxic soils and waters of newly created wetlands are invariably colonisers that will also use up a wide range of nutrients.”
― Nick Romanowski, Wetland Habitats [OP]: A Practical Guide to Restoration and Management

“The swamp isn't a useless piece of land. A swamp is a kind of wetland. Wetlands are important to humans.”
― Dae-Seung Yang, The Salamander's Trial: Wetland

“There is no wetlands with water.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“Find some grass, or some wetlands, a pond, a lake, a stream, etc. Move some rocks, some branches, some vines, some leaves. It’s easier to spot [frogs] when they hop, otherwise they just blend into their habitat, so a little disturbance goes a long way.”
― Aesop Rock

“The good news is that colonialism is powerful but incomplete.”
― Ryan Emanuel, On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice

“The physical reclamation of the floodplain of the Spey involved a hugely ambitious series of localised engineering projects, surely equal to any undertaking in lowland Britain - perhaps more so considering the region's remoteness and economic difficulties.

...Around 40 miles of banks were constructed over five decades, reclaiming some 4,000 acres of the most fertile land in Badenoch, dramatically increasing the region's pastoral and arable yields to the benefit of all. Many of these floodbanks still protect the riverside fields, a monument not just to the ideology of Enlightenment and improvement, but to the vision and labour of all involved - lairds, tacksmen, tenants and labourers. Ironically, the huge Invereshie reclamation scheme, the great drain and riverbanks, are now - in response to a new ideological vision being re-converted into wetlands, the Invereshie Meadows reverting to the Insh Marshes.”
― David Taylor, 'The People Are Not There': The Transformation of Badenoch 1800 - 1863

“Later in February NatureScot published a report, Anticipating and Mitigating Projected Climate-driven Increases in Extreme Drought in Scotland, 2021 - 2040. Extreme drought events, the writers warned, could increase from an average of one every 20 years to one every three, and could also last up to three months longer than they have in the past. Water scarcity could impact crop yields, drinking water supplies, peat bogs and other wetland ecosystems.”
― Tom Bowser, Waters of Life: Fighting for Scotland’s Beavers