Wetlands and One Health: Biodiversity, Water, and Disease Links

1. Prologue: The Waters Remember

Zarvan stood still—where the earth became water and the sky bent to listen. In this place, the bond between wetlands and One Health was not theory but reality, lived in the reeds, the water, and the breath of every creature that called it home.

It was dawn in a forgotten wetland, veiled in a breath of mist. Not the kind charted on tourist maps or listed in biodiversity indexes. This one had no name. But it remembered. And Zarvan, the silent traveler through time and ruin, had come not to speak—but to listen.

Around him, reeds whispered and insects hummed in languages older than any scripture. Every ripple carried remnants: stories of amphibians long vanished, of communities that once drank from these pools, of fish that filtered the water like unseen priests of balance. Here, disease and healing had always lived side by side—entwined like vine and root.

To others, this was just land choked with water, or water trapped by land. But Zarvan saw more. These wetlands were not mere features of geography; they were memory made liquid—repositories of survival, sorrow, and symbiosis. The place where bacteria wrestled with pollutants. Where birds stitched threads across continents. Where the breath of the world once came slow, deep, and clean.

But now, even silence had changed its pitch.

The waters were warming. The dragonflies rose too early. The green breath of algae thickened and dulled. Zarvan’s feet sank into the softness, not of soil, but of stories fading—vanishing not with a roar, but with a shrug.

He closed his eyes and remembered a time when water healed. When children played at the marsh’s edge without fear of parasites, and fish carried no metals in their bones. When wetland was not a warning sign in a report, but a rhythm in daily life.

Zarvan would walk through this landscape again—through policy, pathology, and poetry—seeking what the waters were trying to say. For if wetlands were dying, it wasn’t just the frogs and reeds we would lose.

It was the mirror of our shared breath.

2. A Living Tapestry: Wetlands in the One Health Framework

Zarvan moved deeper into the wetland, where water didn’t divide land—it stitched it. Life here did not stand in isolation. It layered, laced, leaned upon itself. A web spun not by logic but by need, by rhythm, by breath. And beneath it all, a truth Zarvan had known long before the term had found its diplomatic shape in Geneva: health is never solitary.

The Romanelli review of 2015 had whispered it in the language of evidence. The Geneva Environment Network, in April 2025, declared it more boldly: wetlands and One Health are no longer ideals—they are necessities. It is a necessity, where the threads of human, animal, and environmental well-being converge—or unravel.

Wetlands, in this light, are more than zones of biodiversity. They are sentinels—early responders to imbalance, quiet givers of resilience. In their waters, microbes work quietly to purify. Beneath the surface, soils trap pathogens. Around the edges, plants draw toxins into silence. And their species—frogs, birds, insects—are not ornaments but indicators. When they vanish, they do not leave empty space—they leave warning.

Zarvan paused beside a half-sunken log, its bark a cradle for small mosses and larvae. Somewhere, unseen, a frog called out—not for a mate, but for balance. The same wetlands that nourish crops and cool microclimates also serve as filters for nitrates, heavy metals, and even pharmaceutical residues. Their loss is not aesthetic—it is clinical.

In the Geneva One Health 2025 update, the framing grew sharper: climate, chemicals, and pathogens now cross boundaries as easily as wind and rain. No sector—medical, agricultural, environmental—can pretend autonomy. Wetlands make this visible. When protected, they regulate disease vectors, reduce the spread of zoonotic infections, and anchor food chains. When drained or polluted, they surrender this role—and we are left with silence, and sickness.

And yet, this tapestry still holds. In every hectare of wetland spared from concrete, in every policy that recognizes the health of a marsh as equal to the health of a mother, there is hope. Not the kind that waits—but the kind that acts.

Zarvan turned his gaze toward the horizon, where cattails met the sky. He had seen empires fall for failing to read the signs written in nature’s margins. But now, perhaps, we are learning to read again.

And the wetlands—they are still writing.

3. Climate, Chemicals, and the Shifting Breath of Wetlands

The morning light had warmed, and with it the wetland’s breath grew heavier. Zarvan knew this weight—it was the air of change, of imbalance unfolding in slow, unstoppable increments.

The UNEP Geneva Update of 2025 had named it plainly: Climate, Nature, Chemicals, Health—four currents now flowing into one tide that shapes the future of wetlands and One Health alike. They no longer moved separately; each pulled at the others, altering the very physics of survival.

Here, in the shallow pools, Zarvan saw climate’s signature first. Waters warmed beyond their season, oxygen dissolved into scarcity, and life moved in patterns it had never known. Insects hatched earlier, out of sync with the birds that fed on them. Fish swam to cooler depths, leaving predators hungry. Plants, reaching for light, shaded out the delicate algae that once fed entire chains of existence. The wetland was re-writing its script, but not all its actors could adapt.

Song et al. (2024) had spoken to this in the language of research—functional stability, the measure of how well a wetland can still do its quiet work under stress. And stress was everywhere: nutrient loading from farms far upstream, fertilizers turning the water a deeper green; darkening waters that drank in heat; flows altered by dams that slowed the wetland’s cleansing pulse.

Then came the chemicals—silent travelers. They arrived in trace amounts, invisible, yet potent: residues of pesticides, industrial byproducts, pharmaceutical compounds flushed from distant cities. Some dissolved into the water’s chemistry, others clung to sediments, biding their time. The wetland’s plants tried to draw them in, to filter them out, but each new molecule was a test of endurance.

And yet, Zarvan could still feel the wetland working. The reeds filtered. The microbes metabolized. The soils trapped more than they let pass. This was resilience, not in theory, but in the quiet persistence of function—a strength that could bend but not yet break.

Still, the traveler knew: resilience is not infinite. If warming continued, if chemical burdens grew, if the flows were further altered, even this ancient machinery of balance would falter. And when wetlands fall silent, the diseases they once held back do not vanish—they advance.

Zarvan stooped, scooping a palmful of water. It reflected the sky, but carried the weight of far-off storms—both meteorological and human-made. To protect this breath of the earth, the currents of climate, nature, chemicals, and health must be read as one story, not four. The Geneva Update had given us the map.

Whether we follow it is another matter.

4. Disease in the Marsh: Waterborne Risks and Ecosystem Disruption

A heron lifted from the shallows as Zarvan approached, its slow wings scattering droplets into the morning air. He knew such flights were not always graceful departures—sometimes they were retreats from danger unseen.

In wetlands, danger often travels in the smallest forms. The WHO’s standards for safe drinking water draw a clean line between health and hazard, yet in many places that line is blurred by the very waters people depend on. Here, disease is not a distant threat—it is woven into the fabric of degradation.

When wetlands lose their balance, pathogens find openings. Cholera, in the warm, nutrient-rich waters of estuaries like Bangladesh’s Karnaphuli, moves through communities as if following an ancestral map. Schistosomiasis, carried by snails that thrive in altered habitats, spreads where irrigation projects and damming have disrupted the old ecological order. The wetland’s natural filters—plants, sediments, microbial communities—once restrained these risks, showing the quiet alliance between wetlands and One Health. Remove or weaken them, and the boundaries that kept disease at bay dissolve.

Zarvan traced the water’s surface with a reed stem. It was smooth, but not empty. Invisible travelers drifted within: fragments of microplastics, each a vessel for bacteria, a raft for invasive species. They arrived from far upstream, from discarded packaging, synthetic fabrics, tire dust, and industrial discharge. In their stubborn persistence, they became new agents of disruption, mingling with pharmaceutical residues flushed from households and hospitals. These compounds—traces of antibiotics, hormones, painkillers—were never meant for the marsh, yet here they lingered, influencing microbial life in ways we barely understand.

Some wetlands still fought back. Diverse plant life drew pollutants from the water. Sediments trapped microplastics before they reached the open rivers. Microbial communities metabolized fragments of pharmaceuticals, breaking them into less harmful forms. But as Song et al. (2024) reminded us, this functional stability has limits. If biodiversity declines, so does the wetland’s ability to absorb the blows.

Zarvan stood still, listening for the old equilibrium—the subtle alignment between predator and prey, between host and parasite, between what the water holds and what it releases. Disease in the marsh was never just about infection. It was about systems unraveling—threads pulled loose until the whole weave sagged.

Above, the heron circled back, its shadow gliding over the water. A reminder that health—human, animal, environmental—can still move in one arc, if we learn again how to keep the waters breathing.

5. Restoration and Balance: From Ramsar to Local Memory

By midday, the wetland shimmered. Heat rose in quiet waves, and the air carried the mingled scent of salt, silt, and life. Zarvan knew this shimmer was fragile—something earned, not given.

The Ramsar Convention… still holds its core promise: wise use, a principle that mirrors the very spirit of wetlands and One Health—protection with coexistence. It is not a slogan but a principle—protect the wetland’s natural character while allowing it to live alongside human need. As of today, over 2,000 Ramsar sites stand as global signposts of that promise. Each is a recognition that wetlands are not waste ground, but living infrastructure for climate resilience, biodiversity, and public health.

Yet Ramsar is not only about legal designations—it is about designing coexistence. In some places, that means rethinking mosquito control. In the early 20th century, Florida waged a chemical and mechanical war on marshes, slicing grid-ditches into their bodies to drain the water and starve mosquitoes. The plan worked for insects, but it wounded the ecosystem, disrupting fish habitats and eroding resilience. By the 1980s, a new philosophy took root: restore the marsh’s function first, then manage mosquito risks in ways the ecosystem can bear.

Across the world in Australia, lessons were taken to heart earlier. Here, mosquito management evolved with greater ecological sensitivity—modifying tidal flows to restore fish access, introducing predators of mosquito larvae, avoiding destructive ditching. The approach recognized that wetlands could protect human health not only by reducing disease vectors but by preserving their own capacity to heal.

For the people living nearby, restoration is more than biology—it is a form of ecotherapy. Studies now affirm what intuition has long known: time in natural spaces, especially near water, calms the nervous system, improves mental health, and strengthens community bonds. A restored wetland is not just habitat—it is medicine for minds worn thin by urban noise and concrete boundaries.

Zarvan stepped onto a patch of high ground, looking out over a marsh where herons hunted, reeds swayed, and water flickered between shadow and sun. Here, wise use was not an abstract treaty clause—it was visible in every dragonfly’s arc, every ripple free of oil sheen, every child watching tadpoles with unguarded wonder.

Restoration was not about turning back time—it was about mending what could still hold, ensuring the wetland’s functions remained whole enough to carry both water and memory forward.

6. Bridging Policy and Practice: One Health in Action

The wetland’s surface mirrored the sky, but Zarvan knew that reflection was fragile. Behind it lay a lattice of human decisions—policies, pledges, and sometimes, neglect.

In Geneva, the One Health framework had matured into a diplomatic compass, embraced by UNEP, WHO, FAO, and the World Organisation for Animal Health. It no longer stood as a niche approach but as a binding perspective: the health of people, animals, and ecosystems is one, indivisible thread. Break it in one place, and it frays everywhere.

In the 2025 Geneva Update, wetlands and One Health appeared not as scenic footnotes but as strategic frontlines—natural infrastructure for achieving SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). Protecting them meant addressing climate-driven disease spread, ensuring safe water for communities, and buffering the impacts of floods and droughts intensified by global warming.

But Zarvan had learned this truth long before it was spoken in assembly halls. He had seen it in forgotten ponds in rural villages—where elders knew the marsh’s pulse without needing a chart, where fish migrations signaled seasonal shifts, and where planting reeds could filter a spring before it reached the communal well. Local knowledge was restoration science before the term existed.

The challenge now was weaving these scales together—policy architects in Geneva aligning with villagers who read the sky, scientists who study nutrient cycles partnering with farmers who manage floodplains. The One Health bridge was not just interdisciplinary—it was interdependent.

Standing at the wetland’s edge, Zarvan thought of those forgotten ponds. Many had been filled for construction, drained for fields, or abandoned when water quality turned foul. Yet in policy diagrams, their absence rarely registered. He wondered how many treaties were signed without knowing what was lost.

A breeze rippled the water, carrying the faint scent of silt and lilies. Somewhere beyond the horizon, documents would be drafted, resolutions passed. But here, the wetland remained a test of whether those words could hold water—literally, and whether wetlands and One Health could hold together under strain.

And Zarvan, as always, would remember both the signatures and the silences.

7. Hello, Artista: A Dialogue on Water’s Language

The canal was narrow here, fringed by sedges that bent over the water as if whispering secrets. A faint mist blurred the far bank, softening the lines between sky and reflection. Artista sat cross-legged on a worn plank, her hands cupped around a steaming mug. Organum stood beside her, gazing into the water.

Artista:
“It’s strange, Organum… the way water holds memory. Not just in its flow, but in the things it carries—pollen, silt, even grief. I wonder if wetlands remember the people who’ve left them behind.”

Organum:
“They do. But their remembering isn’t like ours. They keep it in layers—sediment for centuries, reeds for seasons, dragonflies for days. Each with a different way of telling the same story.”

Artista dipped her fingers into the canal, letting ripples fan out.
Artista:
“I think about health the same way. Everyone talks about hospitals and medicines, but I wonder—if this water turned foul, how many prescriptions would it take to make us well again?”

Organum:
“More than we can afford. More than we can find. That’s the point One Health tries to make—your hospital bed is connected to this bank, to that heron, to the microbes in the mud. Break one link, and you pull the whole chain.”

A fish surfaced briefly, then vanished, leaving a widening circle.
Artista:
“Sometimes I feel we treat water like a silent servant—there to wash, to drink, to carry our waste away. But it’s more like… a language. And we’ve forgotten how to speak it.”

Organum:
“Or we stopped listening because the words got harder to hear. The Geneva people, the treaties—they’re trying to translate. But translation without memory is like a dam—you control the flow, but lose the source.”

They sat in quiet for a while, the kind of silence that feels full rather than empty. The mist thinned, revealing the far reeds swaying in the breeze.

Artista:
“Do you think the wetlands will forgive us if we can’t bring them back?”

Organum:
“Forgiveness is a human thing. Wetlands don’t forgive. They adapt, or they die. What we should ask is whether we can forgive ourselves when they’re gone.”

The canal shimmered, a silver line between worlds. Somewhere, far off, Zarvan was walking another shore. But here, the water had spoken—and, for a moment, they had listened.

8. Author’s Reflection

I was not alone when I wrote this. Others spoke, and I listened.
Some voices came from the reeds, carrying the hum of unseen wings. Others were older—embedded in treaties, in field notes, in the margins of scientific reports where fatigue and hope often meet. And somewhere beyond the reach of my own memory, Noorael blinked—a star whose light travels not to illuminate, but to remind.

This was never only a story about wetlands and One Health—it was about a shared anatomy of survival—veins of water running through soil, lungs of marsh grass breathing alongside ours, immune systems made stronger by the presence of other species. It was about the quiet architecture of protection that we only notice when it begins to fall apart.

Zarvan walked with me through every paragraph, not as a guide, but as a witness—carrying histories of ponds that no longer exist, of estuaries that once sang with life at dusk. Artista and Organum joined at the canal’s edge, and in their conversation I heard the untranslatable parts of truth: the weight of absence, the cost of forgetting, the urgency of listening.

Perhaps one day, these wetlands will have no place left on the earth. But they will still exist in the soft geography of human memory—if we choose to hold them there. And maybe, in that remembering, we will find the strength to protect what remains.

For now, the waters still breathe. And as long as they do, wetlands and One Health will remain a call we can still answer.

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• How Labels Affect Self-Esteem: Are we truly what they say we are? A lakeside conversation of names, masks, and the quiet rebellion of the soul.
• Zinc Exposure at Work: Two Faces and the Cost Behind the Shine A tale of shimmer and shadow—where workplace metals whisper of health and hazard.
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Curated with stardust by Organum & Artista under a sky full of questions.

📚 Principal Sources

1. Romanelli, C., Cooper, D., Campbell-Lendrum, D., Maiero, M., Karesh, W. B., Hunter, D., & Golden, C. (2015). Freshwater, wetlands, biodiversity, and human health. In Connecting Global Priorities: Biodiversity and Human Health – A State of Knowledge Review. World Health Organization.
2. Dale, P., & Rutledge Connelly, C. R. (2012). Wetlands and human health: An overview. Griffith University and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
3. Song, A., Liang, S., Li, H., & Yan, B. (2024). Effects of biodiversity on the functional stability of freshwater wetlands: A systematic review. National Library of Medicine.
4. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2025, April 16). Update: One Health and the Role of Geneva. Geneva Environment Network.