Kawainui Marsh is the largest remaining wetland in Hawai'i - but it's a shadow of its former self. Alien plants choke its waterways, introduced fish flourish in its waters and development nibbles away at its borders. Yet compared to many of Hawai'i's wetlands, Kawainui fares well. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that, at the end of the 18th century, there were nearly 22,500 acres of wetland within the coastal plains of these islands. By the beginning of this decade, urban and agricultural development had wiped out a third of that area.
Efforts are now underway to protect, restore and even create new wetland areas.
Wetlands are something of an environmental Cinderella story. Historically, they have been seen as nothing more than damp, smelly, mosquito-breeding wastelands fit only for dumping or destroying. On the Mainland, more than half of the original wetlands in the lower 48 states have been drained or converted to other uses. Research Ecologist Katherine Ewel of the USDA's Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry says literature shows some people were aware of the importance of wetlands in America well back into the 1800s, but it wasn't until the 1970s that something happened to make people sit up and take notice. What turned the tide, she says, was that the filling of prairie potholes for agricultural use severely depleted the numbers of migratory waterfowl.