Despite gusting winds blowing through the brittle golden-brown reeds on this chilly late October day, there’s a pungent stench of rotten eggs percolating through the air. We’re standing beside a swamp, near the tiny ancient town of Tatarbunary on the northern fringe of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, some 163 kilometers southwest of Odesa.
But the distinct aroma is not unpleasant when one understands how healthy and natural it is. Lovers of natural thermal springs will concur, because bathers realize the smell is from sulphur produced from long-dead life forms, which are processed into essential nutrients and minerals during the process of decomposition.
Rather less pleasant are the thick plumes of dark grey smoke belching from the exhaust pipes of a battered old military truck and rusting Belarusian tractor perched on the edge of this degraded wetland. They’ve been hastily deployed in a desperate attempt to save an excavator machine from being completely swallowed by the squelching earth near an obsolete Soviet dam they are trying to demolish.
Reversing the damage
The dam being dismantled by Rewilding Ukraine is one of the last of 11 earthen dams to be removed on the Sarata and Koginik rivers. Both flow in stops and starts within the reserve on the northern fringe of Europe’s biggest wetlands. The demolition work, funded by a 28,000 euro crowdfunding grant raised by Rewilding Europe in conjunction with the Dam Removal Europe initiative, will create 20 kilometers of precious wetlands — a big boost for local wildlife, including many species of fish, otters, amphibians and increasingly endangered migratory birds.
But, sadly, the project is far from indicative of the broader outlook for the world’s rapidly disappearing wetlands.
According to Wetlands International, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to wetland preservation, some 50% of the world’s wetlands have disappeared in the last century and more than 90% since the industrial revolution. But here, not far from Ukraine’s Black Sea coast and Romania where 80% of the Danube Delta wetlands ecosystem is contained, a pioneering rewilding project is offering a glimmer of hope and a model for the future, with wetlands properly valued for the many crucial benefits they provide.
Thanks to rewilding, which is essentially the restoration of degraded ecosystems, local fishermen in Tatarbunary should profit from healthier fish stocks and farmers will benefit from more pasture for grazing animals. The new habitats will create fresh opportunities for nature-based tourism too, but there’s another key reason the Tatarbunary council approved the project: to stop floods that have become an annual menace in the last few decades.
An excavator machine used to remove an obsolete river dam is partially consumed in a degraded area of wetland beside the Kohylnyk river within the territory of the Danube Biosphere Reserve (DBR) near Tatarbunary. (Vincent Mundy)
Before the floods
Since the 1970s, when the dams were built as a crude alternative to footbridges to access local aquifers, flooding has caused immense damage to local homes and businesses.
Every year the local roads become impassable for days or even weeks as the floodwaters get higher and linger longer, says Maksym Yakovlev, a local ornithologist who studied biology at Odessa Mechnykov National University.
The 34-year-old, who is also a wildlife photographer, is part of a team of biologists and conservationists working for Rewilding Ukraine, a local branch of Rewilding Europe, which is overseeing the dam removal scheme now nearing completion.
Yakovlev, like several generations of his relatives, has lived in the area all his life, but is too young to remember life before the dams. But he explains how his grandparents’ memories are still vivid and how they are particularly rueful about the damage the dams caused.
“My grandparents told me how so very different it was here and how so many more fish, birds and other creatures lived here before the dams were made,” he says while carefully skirting the edge of the reeking swamp where the excavator is stuck. “But the dams quickly devastated the ecosystem.”
Yakovlev explains how, prior to their construction, there were no flood problems and the local rivers slowly meandered through a rich wetland ecosystem which would store, hold back and slowly release water after heavy rains. “Back then, before the dams, when the ecosystem was functioning properly, we had healthier soil and vegetation. So locals who relied on these benefits have been complaining for years,” he says.
Curious young water buffalo near a feeding station on Ermakov island. (Vincent Mundy)
Drain the swamp?
Rapid climate change, increased urbanization and wetland conversion or degradation are major factors in the massive increases in floods and fires all over the world. But even as floods of biblical proportions sweep the globe, wetlands are still being drained and destroyed for unsustainable agricultural, residential or commercial developments.
The Wetland Extent Trends index show natural wetlands declined by 35% on average from 1970 to 2015 and, according to the summary from the Ramsar Global Wetland Outlook from 2018, “the status of global wetlands makes sobering reading; wetlands in many areas are in trouble, with serious implications for all of society. Reversing the trend of degradation and loss is critical.”
The well-worn Trump mantra “Drain the Swamp” promulgates the pernicious myth that swamps are useless, disease-infested places, rather than vital transition zones.
On the contrary, swamps, bogs and marshes are all important constituents of healthy ecosystems. According to the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S., “wetlands within and downstream of urban areas are particularly valuable, counteracting the greatly increased rate and volume of surface water runoff from pavement and buildings. The holding capacity of wetlands helps control floods and prevents water logging of crops. Preserving and restoring wetlands together with other water retention can often provide the level of flood control otherwise provided by expensive dredge operations and levees.”
Wetlands are as important and as productive as rainforests and prevent floods like no artificial drainage system possibly could. They filter and purify our groundwater and supply us with most of our drinking water. They allow us to irrigate farmland and support agriculture through the maintenance of water tables and nutrient retention in floodplains. And they sequester huge amounts of carbon dioxide, too. So why isn’t more being done to save them?
Soviet catastrophe
Thankfully non-governmental organizations such as Rewilding Europe are taking the issue of wetland conservation and restoration very seriously. The Dutch lottery-funded nonprofit is working to increase the size and health of the Danube Delta ecosystem, which was particularly damaged in Ukraine by a disastrous large-scale Soviet irrigation project implemented in the ‘70s.
The Soviet land-reclamation project was intended to increase agricultural output through an irrigation network that would connect, via newly-built canals, the three major European rivers on the northern coast of the Black Sea: the Danube, the Dniester and the Dnipro. But the Danube-Dniester Irrigation System (DDIS) never actually worked, and instead the project ruined thousands of hectares of farmland and wetlands.
The wetlands quickly dried when they lost their source of water, which was directed into the canals and on to the Sasyk lagoon. The artificial lagoon, which was made by cutting off the sea with a 14-kilometer concrete dike, was supposed to become a giant freshwater irrigation reservoir. But despite pumping in fresh water from the rivers, the lagoon remains saline to this day and is undrinkable.
So while the irrigation project was a catastrophic failure, the ecosystem was never restored and the canal network and salty lake remain, much to the chagrin of locals, many of whom demand the lagoon be reconnected to the sea again. Meanwhile, the former wetlands, like those here in Tatarbunary, almost completely disappeared. But now, thanks to Rewilding Ukraine, things are finally going in reverse.
Yakovlev operates a drone that provides a clear view of the dramatic changes already taking place in this beautiful landscape. “Without the dams,” Yakovlev explains as his drone safely lands on a patch of dried reed bed, “former polders are being re-flooded and the shallow waters and reed beds will become new spawning grounds and nesting sites for many endangered fish and birds. And upstream in Moldova, work is beginning to improve the river flow there too, so these are exciting times for us.”
“Just in the last few weeks, as the first dams were removed, we have seen shoals of fish return and otters establishing new territories,” says Yakovlev. “It’s amazing how quickly mother nature can recover — she just needs a helping hand sometimes.”
Brave new waterworld
Bundled into a small speedboat to zoom across the choppy waters of the Danube, Yakovlev and his team are just 100 kilometers away from Tatarbunary, in the heart of the reserve, to check out another exciting Rewilding Ukraine project taking shape on the huge Danube Island of Ermakov. Here biologists are studying how the introduction of large herbivores regulates and improves wetland ecosystems.
And it’s not long before he encounters some of the dozens of unusual rewilding pioneers that have been released this year on the isolated island, which is only accessible by boat and, thus, safe from poachers.
Sometimes, for the very healthiest and spongiest wetlands, some huge hairy hooves are needed, too. They prevent the vegetation from growing out of control and create space for other important wetland species, says Rewilding Ukraine guide and team leader Mykhailo Nesterenko says as the group skids across the water’s surface.
Suddenly the boat slows down and Nesterenko stands up to point at the shoreline. There, fleetingly appear the dozens of wild konik horses that now inhabit the island. “These large herbivores will play a very important role in the Ermakov ecosystem,” explains Nesterenko, “and we will be bringing other creatures to the island soon, including kulan donkeys.”
The boat speeds upstream and lands on a muddy brown beach, past the thick reeds that blanket most of the shoreline. Gusts of wind carry the notes of countless varieties of birdsong as the group climbs a freshly erected wooden bird-watching platform to observe huge flocks of geese, ducks and other fowl landing and taking off from shallow waters teaming with noisy frogs. “The viewing platform was built in the summer. From up here, you can see how much the island has changed since we removed some of the dams on the island interior,” Nesternko explains. “So instead of these man-made barriers, the impact of the water buffalo will be felt instead.”
Eco-entrepreneurs
As darkness approaches, the group moves to a feeding station to meet the star attraction of the rewilding initiative and learn more about how large ungulates make wetlands more effective.
There are 18 water buffalo here, including a new calf. That makes it important not to disturb the matriarch and bull standing proudly in front of their young one.
Standing 100 meters away, munching on freshly provided hay on a wooden wagon near a soon-to-open building constructed to host rewilding tourists, the bovines do not appear aggressive at all. Nevertheless, rather than approaching, the group’s guides sit down on the damp grass so as to appear as docile and unthreatening as possible.
Then, after a few minutes and rather unexpectedly, some of the younger animals approach. They are completely tame and are curious to meet the newcomers. It quickly becomes apparent what they are looking for — a vigorous scratch and some gentle tickling.
Nesterenko explains that they are so tame because they were gifted by the German eco-entrepreneur Michel Jacobs, who lovingly reared the animals on his Carpathian farm near Khust, where he produces mozzarella cheese from the nutritious buffalo milk. The buffalo arrived on a barge in the Summer and have settled in remarkably well. But with Winter beginning, they are being given extra food and carefully monitored.
Wetlands’ engineers
Although the animals are tame, they are still able to live in the wild, and their wallowing habits — when an animal rolls in the mud — improve the wetlands immensely, Nesterenko enthusiastically explains. “These animals are one of nature’s great engineers, and they open up the scrub and reedbeds, creating pools and puddles which are home to many insects, amphibians and fish.”
According to studies, for these watery ecosystems to perform to their maximum potential, the activities of large herbivore creatures are essential. But also, according to a 2018 academic study on rewilding published by the Royal Society Journal, their reintroduction has an important cultural impact, too.
Rewilding “unsettles sedimented ideas of what is natural where (e. g. large mammal assemblies are an African not European phenomena) and resets expectations of what is possible and appropriate in conservation policy and management. This cultural dimension of trophic rewilding may represent the crucial link between rewilding as a new conservation approach and rewilding as an approach that helps society respond to global change.”
Going Dutch
With darkness descending, it’s time to say goodbye to the buffalo friends and Nesterenko, who needs to stay on the island overnight.
While wetlands in rural areas with roaming bands of horses and buffalo are one thing, how are we to adapt in our cities? Should we also have wetlands in our urban areas with water buffalo living among us?
“With sea levels rising and more extreme weather events such as flooding, we need to completely rethink the way we live,” Nesterenko asserts. “We have to integrate wetlands into our urban areas for sure and, ideally, with water buffalo, where possible.”
As the group clambers back into the boat and prepares to sail back to the mainland and on to Odesa, Nesterenko shouts over the boat’s motor, finishing his thought about how cities can adapt.
“We need to learn from the Dutch who used to suffer terrible flooding. They learned everything about hydrology, the value of wetlands and large herbivores and how to withstand and thrive in a watery world. And the whole world needs to now. Otherwise we simply won’t survive.”
