In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer waxes poetic about the pharmacopia contained in marsh plants. Cattails alone have a ton of stuff going on. If you live in anaerobic rot your whole life you gotta have some good anti-microbials going on. It's practically the aloe vera of wetlands. Or maybe aloe vera is the cattails of drylands.
There's a lot of other reasons to protect wetlands. The tiny little one I was involved with was the water fountain for all of the local pollinators. Water access in the middle of the summer in the PNW is a serious challenge. It was one of the first times I encountered bees and wasps who were too busy doing their thing to even care that I was there.
There's a lot of other reasons to protect wetlands. The tiny little one I was involved with was the water fountain for all of the local pollinators. Water access in the middle of the summer in the PNW is a serious challenge. It was one of the first times I encountered bees and wasps who were too busy doing their thing to even care that I was there.