From the editor:
Sunday is World Wetlands Day.
The United Nations in 2021 adopted a resolution to commemorate annually on Feb. 2 the adoption of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an international treaty signed in 1971. The observance actually dates back to 1997.
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Wetlands across the state serve important roles, and especially here on the North Carolina coast, they surround us. They help provide the quality of life and desirability that lure so many. They buffer us from tropical cyclones and flooding. They help sequester carbon making them critical for mitigating the effects of climate change and to biodiversity and human health. They are nurseries and habitat for countless marine and bird species.
To many regular Coastal Review readers, these points may seem obvious, but they are also key messages behind the recognition of World Wetlands Day, and our wetlands are increasingly imperiled.
The Ramsar Convention defines numerous distinct types of wetlands, organized into three main categories: marine/coastal wetlands, inland wetlands and human-made wetlands. Included among inland wetlands are intermittent or seasonal pools, streams, lakes and rivers.
Article 1 of the UN treaty more broadly defines wetlands as “areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres.”
That’s about 20 feet deep for the metrically challenged. It’s also distant from the U.S. Supreme Court’s myopic, unscientific definition set forth in its 2023 Sackett decision. The ruling found that only wetlands with “a continuous surface connection to” water bodies that are “‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,” those to which we so often refer as “WOTUS,” so that they are “indistinguishable” from those waters, are protected under the Clean Water Act.
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The decision was merely the first ominous domino to fall for North Carolina’s wetlands.
“In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA, the only thing now protecting many North Carolina communities from being flooded in the coming years is the state’s existing ban on paving over wetlands without a permit,” Grady McCallie, policy director with the North Carolina Conservation Network, said at the time, noting that state law was all that was left, “literally protecting lives and property.”
But later that same year, the North Carolina General Assembly saw fit to narrow protections that were tailored to our specific vulnerabilities as a region, placing isolated wetlands outside both state and federal jurisdictions and, therefore, more likely subject to development or degradation.
At the time, state environmental staff estimated that, as a result of both the Supreme Court decision and state legislative action, around 2.5 million acres, or about half of North Carolina’s wetlands and more than 7% of the state’s total landmass, were left unprotected.
Wetlands are too critically important to endanger in this way. The point of World Wetlands Day is to each year raise awareness of this key fact so conveniently disregarded by those wielding power. For 2025, the theme for the day is “Protecting Wetlands for Our Common Future.”
Another definition: A “common future” is one we all share.
“Life thrives in wetlands, and human life depends on them,” said Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands Dr. Musonda Mumba in a statement marking World Wetlands Day 2025. “Wetlands provide the home or breeding ground of many endangered and threatened species and a multitude of endemic plants and animals can only survive in certain wetland locations. Beyond the clean water and food that wetlands provide, they help protect against natural disasters by mitigating the impact of storm surges, floods and droughts.”
Now, with a new administration in Washington rapidly acting on its explicitly stated intent to eliminate or at least further diminish federal water quality, air quality and other environmental safeguards — while also dismantling from within the agencies that enforce regulations and stripping away any environmental justice and civil rights responsibilities in their purview — it’s imperative to recognize how important wetlands are to our coastal way of life. The challenge to maintain and preserve coastal protections throughout the coming deregulatory onslaught has never been more daunting, nor more critical.
The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, has over the course of its four-decade history often phrased the message in pure bumper-sticker simplicity, “No Wetlands, No Seafood.” That’s because it’s a message that resonates.
The nonprofit’s more complete, updated message is to “protect and restore coastal water quality and habitats throughout the North Carolina coast by collaborating with and engaging people from all walks of life who are committed to preserving the coast for now and the future.” Far from simple, it’s hard work that already requires many hands.
Coastal Review strives to always present unbiased reporting on just these issues, encompassing science, energy, government, education, laws, history and culture. Our journalists work to provide all relevant perspectives in our environmental reporting – not the least of which are economic factors. And we will continue this important work, bringing you, our valued readers, the most complete and timely information possible, so that you can better understand and then decide. Of course, as a nonprofit organization, your financial support can help us serve you better in this regard.
Eastern North Carolina’s economy and well-being and those of our nation depend on clean water and healthy wetlands. The people of this region demand it, despite whatever their predominant voter registrations or candidate preferences may indicate, because nobody voted for environmental destruction, endangering public health or imperiling our coastal way of life.
Views expressed herein are solely those of the editor.
