Washington State Has Been Sitting on a Secret Weapon Against Climate Change | Huge swaths of wetlands have been ignored by scientists for years

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1. >Conserving forested wetlands not only protects valuable habitat; it could help stabilize the climate. But first, the wetlands must be put on the map—and that is no easy task.
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   >Wetland ecosystems are stunningly effective at soaking up carbon from the atmosphere. Despite covering only less than 10 percent of the world’s land surface, they contain roughly 20 to 30 percent of the carbon stored in the soil. And because the plant matter in the waterlogged soil decays slowly, their carbon tends to stay put.
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   >Wetlands provide other benefits too: Some 40 percent of all animal and plant species rely on wetlands. The gnarled roots of wetland trees and plants purify water, and the wetland soils absorb it, providing flood protection to nearby areas.
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   >In general, wetlands aren’t faring well. Half of the wetlands in the Lower 48 have disappeared since the 1780s, and, over the past decade, the rate of wetland loss has doubled, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s most recent National Wetlands Inventory. Roughly half of the wetlands in the Mountain West are in poor condition. Though there are thought to be fewer wetlands in the arid West than on the East Coast, “that does not mean that those wetlands are less important,” says Megan Lang, the inventory’s chief scientist. “In fact, it might mean that those wetlands are more important, because there are fewer of them.”
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   >The two main drivers of wetland loss in the West, Lang says, are drought and cattle grazing. Climate change, which is expected to increase aridity in the West, could dry up huge portions of the region’s remaining wetlands by 2050. And when wetlands are destroyed, their carbon is often released into the atmosphere, further worsening global warming.
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   >Last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency changed the federal definition of a wetland under the Clean Water Act, disqualifying thousands of miles of ephemeral streams and millions of acres of wetlands—including those along the Hoh River—from protection under that law. Some federal and state initiatives are attempting to compensate: Late last month, President Joe Biden announced a goal to protect 8 million acres of wetlands over the next six years. And earlier this month, Colorado became the first state to pass legislation protecting the wetlands excluded by last year’s Supreme Court decision.

   It’s great that there’s more of a recognition of the importance of wetlands, and their fragility. Mapping and defining existing wetlands (and their supporting landscapes) is a good first step, and ideally there will be robust public policies as well around them to keep the ones that we have remaining healthy.