Massachusetts cranberry farm restored to wetland; thousands of fish return
A former cranberry farm in Massachusetts has been successfully restored into a 225-acre freshwater wetland. The project involved removing sand layers and re-establishing stream channels, which has led to the return of native fish species.
Why it matters
This project serves as a successful case study for ecological restoration and the reversal of long-term environmental degradation caused by industrial agriculture.
For more than a century, Tidmarsh Farms in Plymouth, Massachusetts, was used to grow cranberries. In 2010 it started a transofrmation that slowly turned it back into freshwater wetland.Tidmarsh Farms is a 600-acre property near the coast. According to NOAA Fisheries, cranberry farming had changed the land by draining its natural wetlands, cutting trees, straightening streams and putting barriers in place to control water. Sand was also repeatedly added over the natural peat, creating a thick layer over the original wetland.The restoration could not return the property exactly to what it had been before cranberry farming.
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