Snaking along the northeastern shore of Manhattan is one of New York City’s last remaining marshes.
The wetlands were built just two decades ago atop what was an illegal dump. But rapid erosion, a byproduct of climate change, is threatening to wash them away.
To save the marshes, a group of conservationists has embarked on an ambitious push to build an offshore reef – and return the shore to the way it once was.
“We are in this case literally restoring what was here 400 years ago,” said Jason Smith from the New York Restoration Project.
Seeing the wetlands vanish was a real wake-up call.
The work comes on the eve of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030, a 10-year push to revive the natural world that launches on 5 June 2021, World Environment Day. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Decade is designed to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. It will draw together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to scale up restoration and revive millions of hectares of land and marine ecosystems.
