Grassroots activism in wetland spaces; Ecological stewardship, regenerative praxis, creative imaginations

Wetlands epitomise 21st-century natures in transition. Subject to global ‘drain and reclaim’ strategies across the 20th century in support of agro-industrialisation processes accelerated by global wars and enabled through neo- classical economic discourses, around 60% of wetlands have been lost worldwide. Ther central importance as amorphous landforms, which store and sequester blue-green carbon, enable a wide variety of biodiversity, recycle nutrients, and purify air and water systems, are now recognised as intrinsic to regenerative strategies in response to climate breakdown. Despite this their entanglement in a range of extractative global processes continues unabated. Processes as diverse as lithium mining in the Atacama Desert, the exploitation of new oil and gas reserves in the Congo River basin and Caspian Sea, genocidal land-grabbing in the Iraqi marshes to speculative property financing in Jakarta, Bangkok, and New York have direct and irrefutable impacts on these diverse ecosystems right into the present. This chapter explores the varied and diverse activism responses by a wide range of global individuals, groups, and movements which seek to amplify and challenge the processes and power dynamics which are impacting upon and reshaping these wetland spaces. This illuminates the range of actions and intentions utilised by grassroots wetlands activists to usurp power – through direct action, regenerative praxis, quiet engagement, and inculcating other worldings through imaginative redirection and speculative animations.