Liberation
How do wetlands relate to urban and rural disinvestment?
What is the human impact of wetlands lost? How does conservation tie into larger efforts towards a liberated future for those whose identities are not honored, whether due to gender, racial, class, disability, and/or sexuality? We trust that a connection to nature is not only healing, but offers us ancient and quiet language for seeking our own liberation.
40% of Oregon’s wetlands have been filled, drained, or diked since Eurocolonialism began in the contiguous 48 states. We aim to honor the loss of one million acres of wetlands that have been filled and developed upon. We fight to protect the 1.4 million acres of wetlands we still have.
We know that wetlands play a critical role in ecosystem health, including improvement of water quality, wildfire defense, and biodiversity. We also recognize that filled and developed wetlands results in flooding and degraded water quality, as well as infrastructure issues for the populations that live there. We recognize that those who will be most impacted by development on wetlands are the same marginalized populations who are most severely impacted by climate change as a whole.
One aspect of the People’s Wetland Project work is a quarterly newsletter, Water Logs, which investigates the social, cultural, and ecological roles of Portland’s regional waterways through print design, art, and writing.
Another aspect of the People’s Wetland Project is an ongoing effort is to investigate and map present and past wetlands and streams, inspired by the brilliant research of Anne Whiston Spirn, who found a correlation between filled streams and urban disinvestment.