Global wetlands are vanishing

RESEARCHERS analysing more than one-million satellite images have discovered 4000 square kilometres of tidal wetlands have been lost globally over 20 years – but ecosystem restoration and natural processes have played a part in reducing total losses.

Dr Nicholas Murray, senior lecturer and head of James Cook University’s Global Ecology Lab, said that globally 13,700 square kilometres of tidal wetlands had been lost, offset by gains of 9700 square kilometres over the two-decade period.

He said about three-quarters of the net global tidal wetland decrease happened in Asia, with almost 70 per cent of that total concentrated in Indonesia, China and Myanmar.