reader Posted April 7 Posted April 7 From The BBC Sri Lanka's capital is transforming floating garbage patches into biodiverse wetlands which are teeming with life. Pay Drechsel is going for his daily morning walk around Thalangama Wetland, in Sri Lanka's capital Colombo. The Sun casts a warm glow over flowering pink water lilies as a farmer scrubs down his water buffalo. A kingfisher hovers nearby. Soon, photographers will arrive to capture curved-necked egrets, waders probing for crawling worms, and little cormorants diving for freshwater fish. Thalangama Wetland and its surrounding swamps, reedbeds, canals and rice fields teem with life. But this hasn't always been the case. About 15 years ago, these ecosystems were degraded and filled with rubbish. They were "dirty, very dirty", says Drechsel, interim country manager at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Colombo. He recalls how he spent one Christmas almost a decade ago cleaning the lake, scouring for piles of rotting garbage leaking contaminants into the water, and sorting waste for recycling. To his surprise, passersby stopped and started helping him. "I realised it's not only me, locals also appreciate it," he says. "But like me over all the years, they may have been waiting for someone to take the lead." The community came together to keep the massive wetland complex clean, forming the Thalangama Wetland Watch. Residents organise weekly collection runs, piling up sorted waste at a small collection unit which the municipality sends off for recycling. School kids volunteer, kayaking through the lake to dig up invasive water hyacinth. Home to over two million residents, Colombo is built on and around a massive network of wetlands. In 2018, Colombo became one of the 18 Ramsar wetland cities in the world – an accreditation which recognises cities for their commitment to restore, safeguard and value wetlands, with 25 new cities added to the list in 2022. As Colombo is located in a river basin, the city is naturally prone to floods. Colombo's wetlands act as a flood buffer, with 40% of floodwaters draining into wetland areas. They also sink carbon, purify the air and control temperatures. As temperatures warm and rains become more erratic, "wetlands are important to the city to mitigate climate change impacts", says Chethika Gunasiri, an environmental scientist at the University of Tokyo who was part of Colombo's Ramsar application. "Wetlands help Colombo mitigate pollution and natural disasters. They help reduce human stress as more and more people are now living in high rise buildings," she adds. Continues with photos https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240917-how-sri-lanka-is-cleaning-up-wastelands-and-reviving-colombos-wetlands splinter1949 and bkkmfj2648 2 Quote
