Wetlands In My Community by Collen Jolobe

I was in an endeavour to search for wetlands in my community; it was a thrill for me to do such a task. I had a long distance, my search was successful and I spotted two of them. I want my community to know about wetlands and that they play an important role in their lives.

The community of Vosman lives next to the mines where water streams have been polluted and the sewerage run off contaminating the wetlands. ‘’wetlands improve the water we drink and the air we breathe. They are capable of filtering pollutants such as sewage, fertilizer runoff composed of nitrogen and phosphorus and heavy metals from industrial waste.

A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The types of wetlands that can be found are swamps, marshes, bogs and ferns, sub types include mangrove, corr, pocosin and varzia.

The community of Vosman have no idea or knowledge about the wetlands because they are filled with rubbish like plastic bags and any other dirt you can think of. They may know that isiyalo (wetland) is purified water but may not even think that the one in their community is worth saving for their life’s and for the future generations because even our municipality doesn’t care to fence them and in putting signs / notices.

These means that this wetlands need to be cleaned-up so that the community can benefit from them. It raises a huge concern when it comes to the problem that we face as a community with water. Sometimes the water is not available even the quality of the water that we have is not drinkable, with wetlands taken care of, it will serve the community of vosman and surroundings with nice clean water to use.

Wetlands needs to be maintained, children should not play near them (to keep them away from drowning) and we need to protect the environment so that we can live a better life even for future generation to benefit from it.

By Collen Jolobe