Wetland conservationists said yesterday said that the population of migratory wild geese had dropped by nearly half from 6,000 a few years ago and warned that the situation would rapidly deteriorate if no action were taken.
Not all is lost as several innovative methods have been adopted to shield the ecosystem, experts said, but added that much more needed to be done to preserve the plethora of biodiversity that wetlands have to offer.
Academia Sinica research fellow Huang Shou-chih (黃守志) said that the nation’s most important wetland — the Dahan Xindian Wetland (大漢新店溼地) along Tamsui River (淡水河) in the heart of the Taipei metropolis — is under imminent threat from falling oxygen levels and the loss of other precious natural resources.
The deterioration, a result of overdevelopment and rising industrial wastes, has not only destroyed much of the niche for the thousands of wild birds that stop over northern Taiwan each October to March on their migratory route, but also robbed Taipei’s more than 5 million residents of the opportunity to have a close encounter with some rare species, he said.
The amount of biodiversity found in wetlands, he said, is second to what’s seen in rainforests.
“The ocean covers fourth-fifths of the earth’s total area, but the regions that contain the highest density of different plant and animal species are often congregated in 6km-wide areas where the land meets the sea,” Huang said.
“If humans continue to sabotage the wetlands, it will be a crushing blow to the food chain, thus diminishing the number species on earth and decreasing the food source for humans,” he said.
Reports in 2002, 2004 and 2005 showed hundreds of wild geese found dead in the Dahan Xindian Wetland because of botulimum toxin poisoning.
The culprit behind the massive destruction of wetlands and vanishing wild birds is “severe” water pollution in the last few years, said two other Academia Sinica researchers — Chen Chang-poh (陳章波) and Hsieh Hui-lian (謝慧蓮) —
Many of government’s recent urbanization projects, such as riverside parks and cycling path along the waters, have greatly damaged the ecosystem and reduced much of the original wetland available for wild birds to make their stops, Hsieh said.
The solution lies in reengineering the water path by adding more bends to a straight river, thus expanding the wetland area, she said.
The restoration of more than 100,000 hectares of wetland, she said, has surprisingly seen the return of more than 10 species of wild birds in some areas.
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