This article was originally published in the Friends of Great Salt Lake newsletter.
Really. It isn’t the first time in human history that a major water body of significant resources and beauty is alarmingly altered in a relatively short period of time. For some, it’s the viewshed, space, solitude, wildlife, a way of life and cultural heritage. Others see opportunity, and why not? And, so it goes for many decades, quietly, as if the world rushed past with fast-moving intension, never looking in the rear view. But we humans never seem to pre-emptively curtail our collective desire and impact. Somehow, a quiet existence inevitably changes in an almost tangible moment, tied to an event or condition that exerts a threshold. Economic growth, often the major driver that quickly changes one’s perspective on something forgotten or not known, or something not understood at all, to the very thing that draws people to it. The value of a natural resource is inherently defined by such states of change. What does this have to do with the lake? Everything.
Our Lake and its surrounding landscape have become the obvious center of such a shift in perspective. A good thing for some, but at what costs? One of the most difficult values to assess are monetary valuation of ecosystem services. Aside from resources that are market driven, such as minerals and land, things that are consumable or provide a function for human use, it is inherently difficult if not impossible to place a fair value on wildlife and the places they need to thrive. How much should water purification cost as surface water flows through upland soils and vegetation before draining into or resupplying groundwater that sustains the standing pool of the Lake? How much should dampening artificial sound and light from sheltering and nesting birds cost? Is it clear what amount of land should be left in its native state to provide sufficient haven for a designated hemispherically important place for birds? What happens when there are conflicting needs and interests between humankind and nature? What if we could start changing the answer to that one? If we knew why we need to protect the surrounding shoreline and a portion of the connected uplands to help secure the well-being of bird populations at risk, birds specifically dependent upon the lake and its wetlands, would that change how we value the Lake and its environs?
As is often the case throughout the United States, land use zoning and entitlement are in place long before the need for conservation actions are taken seriously. But when thresholds of population sustaining natural conditions have been surpassed to the point which quality of life and habitat are compromised for wildlife populations that are in decline, specifically shorebirds, one third of the breeding waterbird species, grassland birds, songbirds, and the insects and / or native plants they depend upon, is it time to reconsider how we protect our natural resources of Great Salt Lake?
Aquatic avian game species and many of the waterbirds are well protected through successful management and conservation efforts for waterfowl. That is a well-established fact illustrated in The State of the Birds, United States of America, 2022 (StateoftheBirds.org) where wading birds, waterfowl including ducks, geese and swan, are the only avian groups of breeding species showing population gains in the U.S. as a result of decades of habitat conservation, illustrating the potential for the other bird groups to rebound. But there is a point at which seemingly well conserved bird habitat needs additional protection because “their world” is closing in on them from the expanding human footprint and infrastructure needed to support it. Water quality, protected shelter, plentiful forage, and habitat quality are at increasing risk of degradation with rapidly increasing strides of development toward the Lake.
Shorebirds and other non-game species are showing a sobering downward trend and are not faring well. Habitat loss paired with hardships related to a changing climate are simultaneously placing considerable and concerning threats on the vast majority of birds at hemispheric proportions. Thus, if you haven’t already, it’s time to admit that “our Lake” and fringing wetlands, home to many millions of migrating birds every spring and fall, is their Lake too.
Thankfully, in response to dire changes that came with the exposed landscape of a greatly receded Lake during the height of the extreme drought in 2022, humankind responded and continues to work collaboratively toward water and habitat security for the Lake and its inhabitants. It’s taken at least thirty years of focused research and discussions across political geographies to bring to light the ecological significance of the Lake and its supported biota beyond economic interests. A collective of individual and organizational voices set the foundation for meaningful platforms from which we have seen a tremendous swell of support and protections for the lake, its wetlands and the birds that depend upon its natural resources. We are thankful, yet we are not done; our work is incomplete, and we know it. The level of commitment is sincere because for numerous reasons, we’ve reached a point in our history, as has preceded us in other saline lake ecosystems around the planet, where human health and hemispheric biodiversity are at serious risk. Sadly, that’s what it takes to leverage the level of change needed to protect something we’ve almost lost for good. Through all this however, there is an important stakeholder that has been largely overlooked and generally dismissed. Who or what is it? Uplands.
Uplands have an overarching prospect as being “developable”. However, upland resources are finite, and one that is rarely considered is the cost of losing upland services from the surrounding ecosystem forever. Just as wetlands were once considered wastelands when we had little understanding of the ecosystem services they provided, uplands adjacent to wetlands are equally misunderstood. When it comes to Great Salt Lake, uplands have been providing silent and unseen support for wetlands, wildlife, and the lake. It isn’t until recent human history that the intrinsic connection between upland functions and healthy wetlands is broadly apparent around Great Salt Lake. We’ve already witnessed a threshold where excessive heat, extreme drought, and water use left little water for the lake posing ecologic collapse and escalated risk to human health. However, we haven’t accounted for additional upland losses slipping out of sight and the cascading effects of discontinuity of uplands and the wetland fringe with respect to added strain on ecosystem integrity including water connectivity to the shoreline.
The second part of this article will appear in the next issue of the newsletter. It will present successful examples of regulatory and other guiding framework across the U.S. that have been established to preserve and protect coastal and other large water body areas and the urgency to establish a protective Shoreline Heritage Area around Great Salt Lake while we have the opportunity. Stay tuned!
