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4 years ago we started rewilding this old quarry turning large parts of it from a sandy mess of a place into a thriving wetland habitat. Albeit still a wonderfully odd and messy one of course. And I think what has really captured my imagination here over the years has been to see this labyrinth of degradation turn around and be reconquered by nature. It really is a symbol of how quickly wild ecosystems can recover and the extra opportunities and momentum that we can provide when we lend it a small helping hand. Welcome back to this incredible rewilded quarry. I mean look at how amazing this place is looking. It's really exciting stuff and it's been 4 years since we started this project and 2 years since you've last seen it here on a main channel massive earth YouTube
video. So I'm really excited to catch you up on all the transformation that has happened since then. So in this video get ready for a really interesting wetlands tour that's going to involve a lot of before's and after's to really show you the transformation of this place. Now in order to really compare things we had the foresight over the years to take some highly detailed aerial imagery of this place both normal videos and images to create an orthophoto mosaic map and this is what Flora who manages most of our partnership projects these days is here to do. Oh nice. Oh that's cool. So beautiful. What? So we're going to fly the drone over the same area we flew it in 2024 and I believe 2022 as well. And this is going to give us a lot of
information about how the area has changed. This was the original orthophoto mosaic from before the interventions. It was shot in 2020. Then this was from the spring in 2023, when the interventions were already complete. And this is the map that Flora made now in 2026. And when you look at these, it's worth bearing in mind a couple of things. First is that this is only one part of the wetlands. And the second is that the first map was made in August, while the other two are from the spring. One is from May, and this one we made now is from late April. So, we should not get too focused on differences such as how much greener it is now. The key thing we are focusing on is the water
surface area, which should be reasonably comparable because much of the new water accumulation is there year-round. But of course, to get a proper test of this, we'll have to do a map in August at some point further down the line. So, with all of that cleared up, we can now take a look at the results that Flora calculated for the water surface area. And they're really striking. In late 2020, we had 21,472 square meters. Then, in 2023, shortly after the intervention, this increased by 47.2% to 31,706 square meters. And over the next 3 years, as the wetlands stabilized and with a good rainy winter, the water surface area increased by another 28.5% and has now reached 40,743 square meters. That is 87.3% more than the pre-intervention map,
which is pretty incredible stuff. And in this arid region, this is a very meaningful increase in the size of the wetland, which is why it was one of the key indicators by which we wanted to measure the success of this project when we originally wrote down the plan for this work in 2022. So, it's great to see the results so clearly. And it was lucky that Flora got the job done when she did because soon a really impressive storm moved in. Woah! It was incredible to witness such a force of nature passing right in front of us. And the clipping mic doesn't do justice to how loud and powerful that was. I was really shook. It was amazing. But as incredible as these storms are to
look at, they did make our life difficult when it came to filming. So, when a brighter day came along, it was all hands on deck to help out. I'm going to get the underwater gear all set up. And we're going to go uh explore a little bits of this wetlands underwater and see what we can find. My underwater and uh sometimes clumsy above water search revealed a dark and gloomy world of algae and aquatic plants. And it was very difficult to spot any of the animals that live here, even though we know they are around as we often spot them from the surface. And also, as we know from the results of our eDNA analysis from a few years back.
Nevertheless, I was happy to see that this looks nothing like the Blue Lake overrun by crayfish and completely dead. And it doesn't sound like it either. None of the crackling and sizzling sounds typical of shrimp and crayfish. So, this tells us that they are not spreading aggressively into this area at the moment. But more on that in a bit. So, after getting dry, I went searching again. And I quickly found a nice variety of invertebrates on the water surface, such as these whirligig beetles of the Gyrinidae family that congregate in these chaotic dancing groups. Or these water striders confidently skating
around. And eventually, all this searching led me to the local predator that benefits from their existence. I want to present you now a beautiful Iberian tree frog. Uh which I'm going to try to film with the macro lens now. I'm just release right here. Look at that beautiful little guy. As carnivores that hunt in aquatic environments, they're one of the main beneficiaries of all the ponds and wetland expansions that we have made here. And all the invertebrates that they attract and now get to hunt with their long sticky tongue. Then, a bit further along, I found a European pond turtle, which was eyeing me up with
suspicion. These wonderful creatures are near threatened due to reductions in wetland habitats. So, we are happy to have them here. And as they live on average around 40 to 60 years in the wild and have a small home range of no more than 12 ha, we can expect this one will stay its whole life in this wetland. And somehow I find that a comforting thought that when I go to bed each night, this European pond turtle is here, hopefully roaming this place in peace and quiet. Before we continue with the rest of the video, I just want to say, you know, if you're not yet a Mossy Earth member, please consider becoming one. We were able to fund this project because of our Mossy Earth members. We have teams in
four different locations in Indonesia restoring corals, in Ecuador in the Amazon rainforest, in Scotland restoring seagrass out in the firths, and here in Portugal in the Mira basin. And we also support really targeted and specific projects with partners such as Rewilding Portugal here, or in Iceland, in Argentina, among many others. It's a yeah, really amazing stuff that we can do with your contribution. So, if you like our work, then please consider becoming a member at mossy.earth. It's a really big deal. So, now it's time for our wetland tour, both on foot and using the drone, whose departure to go get the transformational shots led to some heartbreak in our family.
Okay, so to make sense of this, let's go in the same order we used in previous video, starting with this barrier here that [snorts] catches all the runoff from this hill. Okay, so this is one of the first barriers in the system and as you can see it's holding up really well. It's still managing to keep all of this water on the other side. There's loads of vegetation on this. This is not going anywhere and it's creating this really nice wetland environment over here where there was nothing before. So, this is really cool to see. As you can see here, when the digger first came in, all we had were some occasional puddles in the winter. Well, now we have this wetland environment here most of the
year. And I really love that Tiago had the foresight to film all of this 4 years ago in 2022 because it now allows us to see this transformation in a very clear and visual way. And when we look at the change from 2023, it's also really interesting because right after the intervention, we can see that first the water came, but then it took some time for the wetland plants to arrive and establish themselves fully. And it was amongst this vegetation where we found some more insects taking advantage of the wetland and a few more Iberian tree frogs stealthily awaiting their next meal. So, here we have the next barrier and this one's really important because it has allowed for all of this
water here to accumulate. The lake that we've been talking about in an area that used to pretty much just be barren dirt with a few puddles in the winter. And I mean, look at it now. It's really incredible. It's covered in cattails, willows, and all kinds of other wetland plants. It's It's really nice to see, and it creates this wonderful three-dimensional habitats that many different species can take advantage of. The transformation here is even more impressive as there's been quite a bit of water accumulation, and it's all thanks to the blocking of this point here, which stopped the water from continuing along the narrow channel that
used to exist here. And this is actually where I filmed the European pond turtle I showed you earlier, and where later in the day we got to see a little frog party of Iberian green frogs. That's a green frogs, not tree frogs. Then, in the air, zooming above the water and amongst the cattails were all kinds of dragonflies. Okay, maybe someone can explain ex- Maybe someone can explain to me exactly what's up with these dragonflies that they get a bit relaxed and you can actually like handle them a bit. They still fly away, but they're a lot more tranquil. So, yeah, I'm quite curious. Do you know? Are they just old and like much calmer or Yeah, I don't know what's up with them. From my research, it could be anything from the
colder temperature to the species just being quite tolerant to touch, but I'd be really curious to hear your best guesses as I am sure there are some dragonfly aficionados out there. So, please leave them in the comments. Okay, so here you can see that this whole area this whole bridge here is lined with willows. And this is actually where the water was running through a really narrow point including some pipes underneath this old bit of road. So, by removing the pipes and then blocking all this up and lining this with willows, we've created a really sturdy barrier that allows for all of this flooding you can see here behind me as well as the creation of those Mediterranean temporary ponds over there.
So, this is one of the barriers that created the most flooding with the water rising well above the previous margin to create a larger lake and as a consequence kill these willows here. As I mentioned before, this was expected and it simply means that the willow line will move to the new margin both through our own planting in the barrier itself, but also through natural propagation. And for now, this creates this interesting space where it is easier for us to spot birds that like to perch here and as I mentioned, all of this flooding has also spread to the nearby area to help create some ponds. So, these here are the famous Mediterranean temporary ponds. These ephemeral habitats that are only really
here when there's a big flood in the winter, they will, you know, fill up with water from rainwater and from the floodwater over there. And then as the season sort of turns drier and drier, they become isolated. And that's really important because it gives certain species of invertebrates, it gives certain species of amphibians a chance to reproduce and to have as their habitat a place that is not full of fish and other predators. It's a really neat environment and the whole thinking when creating that barrier there was to create in this flatter kind of flood plane-y bit a few of these Mediterranean temporary ponds. So, um that's mission accomplished. It's It's really cool to see.
Here, it was easy to spot some more amphibians and also some birds such as this white wagtail that was calmly picking off some insects from the pond. And then we got to the place where 2 years ago we saw hundreds of crayfish. The truth is we haven't really seen signs that they've spread much out of this area. So, it's kind of a nice signal that perhaps there's a balance here with the otters, with the herons hunting all the crayfish that's they're keeping the population in check enough to avoid us having to do something such as trying to eradicate them because that would be very costly and probably impossible. So, if they're suppressing them sufficiently, then it's probably not worth it for us to do something about it.
Later on, I was able to film some of these predators in action using the zoom lens on my new drone. This is a pretty neat trick and it was nice to be able to capture these images without disturbing them. And as I was filming them, Yulia was focused on the sky and she captured a few more predators circling around such as this short-toed snake eagle and the ever-present red kites. Now, when it comes to the remaining barriers, we have two left down from here. There's this large one here creating all of this flooding that is holding up really well and only overflows during large flooding events such as this spring. And then there's
this one down here that essentially was created by blocking the water that used to run through the road and is now flooding this plantation of ash trees that was left by the previous owner. And in these wetlands is where I usually saw ducks and also some wading birds taking advantage of the new habitat. And as we were filming this, we got a chance to meet up with Pedro who leads Rewilding Portugal and I was really curious to ask him after all of these early successes, where does he think things can go from here? So, we want to give it a little bit of time for that succession to kick start and then bring more processes. And with more process, I mean to have larger grazers here in this place.
Predation apex predators to be more present. We were working on bringing back more number of rabbits for attracting links. We know that the wolf is being present coming through here, but we want them to find this place as their habitat to settle. Now, that's a really exciting prospect to imagine to have this wetland at the core of a thriving wild ecosystem. That is why we chose to work with Rewilding Portugal for almost a decade already, and why we're really excited about what can be achieved in years to come. I'm I'm really happy with the results here. And if you've enjoyed this uh tour of the wetland, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel because in the next video in this series, we're going to go
check out the Blue Lake and some really interesting transformations that we have made there. And finally, as usual, we can only do this work because of our Mossy Earth members who contribute a small amount every month to our projects. But because there's many of us, we can do really big things. And as a member, you get to follow along on the progress that we make with these projects. I think it's a real positive thing. So, if that sounds like something for you, then please consider becoming a member at mossy.earth. Every bit helps. It's a really big deal. So, thank you to everyone who's contributed, and until next time.
Cheers.
