SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – Research shows that one acre of healthy Sierra Nevada wetlands can capture as much carbon from the air as one acre of a tropical rainforest.
In South Lake Tahoe, these species rich wetlands sit between neighborhoods, lay like patchwork divided by roads, and with the help of the California Tahoe Conservancy and partners, are slowly reclaiming their territory.
This reclamation comes as the CTC’s climate change projections predict the basin’s average temperatures will increase by four to nine degrees Fahrenheit in less than 80 years, making summer in Tahoe feel as hot as summer in San Jose does today.
These wetlands already made up a small percentage of the landscape before human impacts, but after, meadows diminished by 50% and the wetter marshes by 75%, according to the CTC’s Watershed Program Supervisor Stuart Roll.
Experts at the CTC and partnering organizations say these wetlands are important to the larger watersheds they’re a part of…