Beauty over the muck: appreciating wetlands via the tales of people

Lying in the transitional zone between open water and dry land, wetlands are often muddy, squishy, lumpy, and sometimes smelly. And wetlands are jungles of dense, tangled weeds and breeding factories for mosquitoes and diseases. So not surprisingly, to many of us, wetlands are ugly and messy, certainly not as attractive as coral reefs, savannas, tropical rainforests, or ice-covered poles. Wetlands — the ugly duckling of landscapes — are...