Take a moment to close your eyes and imagine you're standing in a wetland 🧘 What came to mind?
🦟 Mosquitos?
🟤 Mud?
💦 Water?
👃 Something smelly?

Or maybe
🦆 Birds?
🐟 Fish?
🌿☘️ Beautiful plants?
🦗🐛🐜🦋🐝🪲 A glorious abundance of insects?
💦 And yes, also water?

There are many different types of wetlands in the world - lakes, rivers, peatlands, estuaries, mangroves, and more. In fact, the RAMSAR Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands, includes coral reefs as a wetland 🪸

Cool right? You know what else is cool? What wetlands do for us! Like...
🎣 Provide food
🌎 Help regulate the climate
🫙 Store carbon dioxide
🌊 Protect against storms and floods
🥛 Helps clean water
🛶 Gives us space for fun

The bad news is that we aren't being good friends to wetlands. Many are damaged, polluted, and even being destroyed thanks to things like pollution, development, climate change, and cutting off their water supply (apparently, the rate of "loss" is three times faster than forests).

Since today is World Wetlands Day, what better day to start being better friends with wetlands? Here are some ideas to get you started:

🧹 Join a cleanup - they're most often run by charities, NGOs, and environmental organisations. If there isn't a cleanup for your local wetland, speak with those groups about setting one up.

🧪 Become a citizen scientist and discover more about wetlands while helping to collect valuable information for research and conservation work. These are mostly led by NGOs, environmental organisations, and universities, but sometimes also local governments. There's a list of just a few of the marine science citizen science projects (including some relevant to wetlands) here: https://lnkd.in/ewxTp4rp

💳 Make a donation to charities managing wetlands. In some places, charities will buy wetland land and take care of it - like the RSPB in the UK for example. They also run events and offer respectful public access too.

🚶 Visit your wetland! There's nothing like getting out in nature (even if there may be mosquitos).

❎ If you live in a nation that allows it, exercise your right to have your say. That includes voting, writing to your local government representative, and saying no to developments that destroy yet more wetlands.

💬 Start chatting with your friends, family, and colleagues about wetlands