Reading 新竹市青草湖社區大學
2003/11/28
Reading Xiangshan Wetland is the biggest wetland formed by drifted sands from Touqian stream and Fengshan stream in north Taiwan. The square measure of this area is 1025 hectare. Numerous ocean creatures breed here. Nameable species include 30 kinds of sea insects, 118 kinds of shellfishes, 43 kinds of crabs, 2 kinds of echinoderm, 208 kinds of fish, and 274 kinds of birds. The shore in Xiangshan Wetland is a place migrants across two continents go through and also an oyster farm. Buddhist monk crabs and Long live big eyes crabs are one of the most attracting landscapes near the seacoast.
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| Marsh | Swamp |
To most people, Xiangshan Wetland is simply a gift Nature gives us. Less people know the gift might be taken away anytime. Seeking the growth of economics, many people attempted to transfer the natural wetland into an industrial area. Even someone claimed the project had to be enforced in a hurry without the judgment of Environmental Protection Administration. Fortunately, some people know the importance of the wetland and insist that descendants should have more opportunities to enjoy themselves near the ocean. These people get together to fight against those who embraced the project for nine years. Finally most of the committee agreed that Xiangshan Wetland shouldn't be developed. Actually Xiangshan Wetland had changed a lot because of some man-made factors during the period.
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Food Web | London Wetland Centre |
Why were so many people willing to protect the wetland? You can imagine how important wetlands are. In terms of ecology, wetlands are one of the biggest biological hothouses where a huge variety of species breed. The other two hothouses are rain forests and coral reefs. Different climate, geology, water, and other physical or chemical elements determine different plants and animals in each wetland. The relationship of creatures seems to form a food web. Wetlands can also be regarded as "biological supermarkets." Many animals get food from this supermarket for living. Besides, wetlands is like a sponge conserving water, which can prevent the nearby land from flood. Thus wetlands help to moderate global climate conditions.
Economically, many people rely on the creatures from wetlands, including fish and shellfish, timber, cranberries, blueberries to earn a living. For example, fish and shellfish from the estuary-coastal wetland are the main source of the commercial catch in the Southeast. In 1991 all the commercial fish and shellfish from Louisiana's coastal swamps earned 1.2 billion pounds worth $244 million.
Furthermore, wetlands could be a paradise where children love to go. You could hear that many parents talk about how they go fishing and picking shellfish in wetlands in their childhood. When they talk about it, they cannot help laughing and seems to forget all the worry and sorrow. To those who ever played in wetlands, wetlands are not only a place which bring them happiness but a psychological doctor who can help them release the pressure and even cure some of their mental problems.
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| Children Observing Wetland | Inland Marsh | Wood Ducks | Wetland |
An integrated approach is often used to protect wetlands because the existence of wetland has a great relationship with the surrounding environment, such as ground-water, flood, climate and etc.. The approach is to put wetland protection programs, and other relative resource management programs, such as flood control, ground-water protection, water supply into practice at the same time. Recently, more and more groups, such as local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private landowners engaged in protecting wetlands because they realized that wetlands are an important heritage to human beings. The goal of these people is to carry out a comprehensive, integrated watershed protection approaches. Though so many people do their best to protect wetlands, the destruction of wetland still goes on. Maybe you will doubt if what you do takes effect. A professor said that only if you can make efforts, you will succeed one day.
Glossary
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Bottomland Hardwood Swamp Todd Vottler |
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