As many of you may be aware, the SWS Board and membership has approved the start of "Interest Groups" within the society. Many "obvious" ones are already springing up but one that I am interested in would be called (for the lack of a better term at this point) Wetland Culture.

Since there is also an interest in not having "too many" groups, Wetland Culture would be an umbrella group that could include sociology of wetland peoples, wetland archeology, wetland art (both wetlands reflected in art and art made from wetland products), and other similar areas.

If you are interested in helping initiate such an interest group, please let me know!

Mark Felton
mark_felton@urscorp.com

Okay, so perhaps I should go into more detail since there has been such a broad range of responses so far...

I have felt for a number of years that SWS misses out on a more robust experience with wetlands that can have significant parallels and correlation to wetland science. This is why, as President, I tried to reach out to other professional societies (the lawyers, landscape architects, planners, and engineers) to “connect” what our understanding is with these others who also work with wetlands in one manner or another. A continuing aspect that spins off this same interest was the “history” of wetland use and perception.

Probably the single most item that peaked my interest was in "wetland peoples"....and seemingly there is a distinction between those wetland peoples that are the majority culture versus a minority culture. Additionally, what was it about the wetlands in question that caused it to be valued (and therefore “taken” by the majority culture) versus being “rejected” by the majority and relegated to a minority culture.

An example? The Cajuns of Louisiana are a minority culture living and using wetlands in the Mississippi delta as are also the Lippovans in the Danube delta and the Marsh Arabs in the Euphrates delta. I would like to see more understanding of the similarities and differences between these cultures and the reasons these groups came to those wetlands.

Conversely, the peoples of the Mekong delta and Ganges delta are majority cultures. Why did they value these wetlands, what similarities and differences exist between them and how do they relate to minority wetland cultures?

In North, Central and South America, it would be interesting to extend this train of thought into the native peoples as well (for example, examining the differences between say the Choctaw and the Seminole)

Then the “next step” is to look at the ethnobotanical aspects of wetlands – how have people used wetlands as food, medicine, art, etc.

I think it would also be quite interesting to examine how art (painting, sculpture, books, and film) portray wetlands, what caused some artists to “value” some wetlands and not address others (Monet and water lilies versus how people portray swamps).

I believe SWS should reach out to this “other” areas and develop symposia and/or papers in these areas. Are the issues as seemingly time critical as a deeper understanding of phosphorus movement in hydric soils? Perhaps not but “understanding” one another and celebrating those that live and work in wetlands would seem to also be an important goal of SWS.

If you’re interested in starting an SWS Interest Group on the topic, even if we need to broaden the scope, please
1) let me know, and
2) offer some additional ideas of what we could/should address!
Thanks,
mark

Gday over there
Im an Australian scientist based at CSIRO who has just joined this exciting forum. Ive done a fair bit of work in Kakadu National Park on the protection of wetlands with Aboriginal people which included cross-cultural evaluations of wetland programs and collaborations.

Mark, is the line of thinking you are proposing to prompt some Pacific NW thinking and experience? Is there anyone over there who has also pursued this line of work?

Best wishes
Cathy

Cathy,
Thank you for posting - I was beginning to feel "one with the wilderness"!

Frankly, I/m proposing everything and nothing specific. It merely seems to me that SWS misses an opportunity to understand wetlands in a truly robust fashion when we don’t go beyond our immediate physical sciences. Irrespective of whether the connection with the human race is thru art, history, economics, language, politics, etc, if we don’t encompass everything then we tend to miss something.

For a long time I’ve been interested in having SWS sponsor symposia on these other connections. My first thinking was in either ethnobotany or archeology. I would like to see us reach out even further.

To that end, if you have ideas on what we should include, propose, etc, I’m a willing listener!

If anyone else would like to join in this venture, please let me know. If we have sufficient numbers of folks, we can propose establishing a “section” in SWS.