S3, 11: Newsflash: Wetlands Restoration & Recording Breaking Temperatures

August 15, 2024

Newsflash: Wetlands Restoration & Recording Breaking Temperatures: Under 5 Minutes Listen

Mossy Earth and their local partners have restored a 40 hectare meadow wetland!

In cooperation with their local partners BROZ Nature Conservation Association, who were also partners on the Flooded Forest project, they have flooded another wetland along the Danube! This time the project focused on a different type of wetland habitat – wet meadows – that have become a rare sight in these lowlands.

Not long ago, wetlands were such an integral part of life in the Danube lowlands that locals would use over 20 expressions to describe the different types of wetland habitats!

Over the course of the 20th century, much of the area got drained to make space for agriculture and the extent of wetlands shrank to a fraction of their former size. So when an opportunity came up to support the restoration of this rare wetland type, they were all in!

The newly restored wetland is fed by the Ciliz Brook, a 33.5 kilometre waterline that once connected to the Danube River. The brook itself used to lack water on most of its course because a number of drainage channels were built on its course.

Thanks to a series of interventions done by BROZ Nature Conservation Association since 2016, which included the reconstruction of several poorly built drainage channels, water has returned to the brook in its full length.

Until now, the brook had a dead end in which the water would accumulate and spill over into another drainage channel. They decided to harness the potential of this water and create another ending to the brook – a 400 metre channel.

Now the water, that would otherwise be lost from the landscape, feeds a 40 hectare disused field over-ridden with invasive plants. Over time as the new water-logged conditions push back the invasives, a wet sedge meadow will form here, providing much needed refuge for species such as the endemic Pannonian root vole, newts and amphibians and migratory bird species.

The last “dig” as they opened the new outflow was a moment of celebration and the story even made it to the national news! And now it is also featured on the Constructive Voices Newsflash.

Photos and words from original post by Mossy Earth

Record Breaking Temperatures

One of the world’s top female sustainability influencers, who was a Constructive Voices’ guest and Round Table collaborator, shared this on LinkedIn.

Roberta Boscolo wrote that:

A shocking 15 national heat records have been shattered in just the first half of 2024. According to climate historian Maximiliano Herrera, this year has been unprecedented in the number of temperature records broken globally, with 130 monthly national temperature records and tens of thousands of local highs from the Arctic to the South Pacific.

From February to July 2024, extreme heat events have reached levels previously unimaginable. While last year’s heat was exacerbated by El Niño, the current wave of records persists even as the phenomenon fades, highlighting the relentless impact of man-made global heating. The fiercest temperatures have struck the tropics, with Egypt hitting 50.9°C, Chad tying its record at 48°C, and Ghana setting a new high of 44.6°C.

The relentless heat is not just breaking records—it’s breaking the very resilience of ecosystems and communities. the World Meteorological Organization warns, these trends show no sign of slowing. Without urgent action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, new extremes will continue to emerge, with devastating consequences for life on Earth. This is a call to action. The time to act is now.

Original post from Roberta Boscolo

Written by: Jackie De Burca