Hark-the Tiddy Mun, lurching from the murk. Beware Will-o'-the-Wisp, se-ducing benighted travelers into the swamp. Hear the padding of the Black Shuck. The incumbents of moors, marshes, fens, and levels mobilized their extra-territorium poaching, smuggling, distilling, arms caching, and rough jus-tice activities unimpeded through perpetuating imaginaries of fear and anxiety. Disorientating wetland mythologies and folklore still resonate today within our contemporary cultural and literary narratives of these paludal spaces. This arti-cle explores how these uncanny representations compromise wetlands' future protection. Wetlands' carbon sequestration, floodwater storage, and biodiver-sity properties contribute significantly to climate change adaptation strategies. Yet delinquency, vandalism, fly-tipping, and arson in these waterscapes evi-dence continued contemporary human disregard. Empirical findings from the WetlandLIFE project show the diverse ways in which these narratives are being shifted toward a nowtopian framing, to encourage people to use and value wetlands differently, to prevent further degradation of these complex, vital, and unruly landscapes.
Gearey, M
English Wetland Immersions Encountering, Slowing, Navigating, Imagining in Terrestrial Water Worlds
Transfers-Interdisciplinary Journal Of Mobility Studies