David Moreno-Mateos, a University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow, has some useful advice for humankind. He likely didn't intend his message to be read the way I've construed it, but that doesn't matter. Moreno-Mateos was the principal author of a study of hundreds of "restored" wetlands all over the world. On January 24, Science Daily summarized the study in Restored Wetlands Rarely Equal Condition of Original Wetlands.

Wetland restoration is a billion-dollar-a-year industry in the United States that aims to create ecosystems similar to those that disappeared over the past century. But a new analysis of restoration projects shows that restored wetlands seldom reach the quality of a natural wetland. "Once you degrade a wetland, it doesn't recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and nutrients, for many years," said David Moreno-Mateos, a University of California, Berkeley, postdoctoral fellow. "Even after 100 years, the restored wetland is still different from what was there before, and it may never recover." Moreno-Mateos's analysis calls into question a common mitigation strategy exploited by land developers: create a new wetland to replace a wetland that will be destroyed and the land put to other uses. At a time of accelerated climate change caused by increased carbon entering the atmosphere, carbon storage in wetlands is increasingly important, he said.

Quoting from the abstract—

Wetlands are among the most productive and economically valuable ecosystems in the world. However, because of human activities, over half of the wetland ecosystems existing in North America, Europe, Australia, and China in the early 20th century have been lost. Ecological restoration to recover critical ecosystem services has been widely attempted, but the degree of actual recovery of ecosystem functioning and structure from these efforts remains uncertain. Our results from a meta-analysis of 621 wetland sites from throughout the world show that even a century after restoration efforts, biological structure (driven mostly by plant assemblages), and biogeochemical functioning (driven primarily by the storage of carbon in wetland soils), remained on average 26% and 23% lower, respectively, than in reference sites. Either recovery has been very slow, or postdisturbance systems have moved towards alternative states that differ from reference conditions...

There are details which are ultimately unimportant, like this one—

Large wetland areas (>100 ha) and wetlands restored in warm (temperate and tropical) climates recovered more rapidly than smaller wetlands and wetlands restored in cold climates. Also, wetlands experiencing more (riverine and tidal) hydrologic exchange recovered more rapidly than depressional wetlands...

We are interested in something Moreno-Mateos said in the Science Daily report. The article notes that numerous studies have shown that specific wetlands recover slowly, but this Berkeley post-doc believes that his meta-analysis "might be a proof that this is happening in most wetlands." And then Moreno-Mateos said—

"To prevent this, [to] preserve the wetland, don't degrade the wetland"

Wow! That's some really good advice! Are you listening, humanity? If you want the wetlands to function as Nature intended, don't screw them up to begin with. There is a phrase some of us use to describe statements like this. We call such observations common sense. This example serves to remind us that we humans cause the large majority of the problems we spend our time worrying about. Busy, busy, busy!

Moreno-Mateos could put himself out of business. If we hadn't destroyed those wetlands in the first place, there wouldn't be any need to fund and carry out elaborate studies to see whether "restored" wetlands have actually been restored to their original condition. If we didn't blow up alleged terrorists with predator drones, we wouldn't have to be concerned with the flack we get when we blow up civilians instead. There are literally millions of examples which could be cited here. Almost every single thing we spend our day worrying about is an example. Once you start making this list, you could spend the rest of your life compiling it. You would die without finishing.

Years ago I was talking with a friend about a report I had heard on NPR about the problem of keeping our pets cool when it's too hot outside. This was a problem? If so, it existed entirely within the busy minds of pet owners. How about letting your dog find some shade and giving it a steady supply of water? But that's not good enough!

The Precision Pet Cooling Pad (left) provides the following features:

Self-cooling cushion prevents overheating

Reduces surface temperature by 10 degrees

Made of durable, non-toxic vinyl

Pressure-activated technology - low maintenance!

After that NPR report, whenever I talked with my friend, I always referred to all of the human-caused problems we worry about as the Dog Cooling Problem.

So for me, the "problem" of wetlands which have not been fully restored is a Dog Cooling Problem, an invented difficulty. Most problems in the human world are Dog Cooling Problems. If you want to preserve important ecosystems like degraded wetlands, don't degrade the wetlands.

That's sound advice.