Wetlands as Waste Treatment only works if you have an intact ecosystem

If you follow the instructions in a previous post to establish latrines and use existing wetlands for waste treatment from them, keep in mind that this system has to work WITH nature. You are restoring the wetlands and there needs to be a functional ecosystem to work as FREE waste processing.

This means you will need to find ways to live with the local flora and fauna, including some of the predators that will come to the newly thriving wetlands to hunt.

Big predators are not stupid. They are generally intelligent animals. If you do not hassle them, it is possible for them to learn to avoid the latrines and not bother people so they can enjoy their improved hunting grounds.

Many years ago, I saw a site for a non-profit organization that may no longer exist. It talked about "seeing like a mountain" and how an ecosystem devoid of predators means that large herbivores, like deer, strip the land of flora.

So you will need to work out how to peaceably co-exist with nature if you use your local wetlands as waste water management for simple latrines. This will require you to do some environmental education and teach locals to co-exist with nature and WHY.

They need to NOT harass the animals. If they harass the animals, the animals will attack them and if you make it policy to kill animals that got pissed off about being mistreated and struck back, you will soon have a broken ecosystem and your FREE, environmentally-friendly waste water management system will break down.

This works because it helps improve the functioning of the ecosystem by providing fertilizer for plants which then feed animals and then other animals feed on those animals -- unless you kill all the crocodiles or similar and then the whole thing will eventually fall apart.

If you are using a natural wetlands for waste processing, you are:
  • Restoring or improving the health of a wetlands.
  • Reversing climate change by promoting carbon sequestration while raising quality of life for some of the poorest people on Earth.
If a predator like a crocodile kills a guy and everyone knows he was harassing it, leave the animal alone and tell yourself it did the community a favor. He was probably also being horrible to people on a routine basis.

Only kill one of the predators if you have evidence that one of the crocs is old, injured, has lost its mind and is a GENERAL threat. Otherwise, DO NOT KILL THE LARGE PREDATORS. You need them to have a functional ecosystem.

The above advice is not solely based on book learning. I have firsthand experience co-existing peaceably with large predators that could have killed me and my sons when we were homeless.

For more than a year, we frequently camped in a field near a river. This was during a multi-year drought and local animals were stressed about not having enough food and water.

When we first showed up, there was a large bird that would stare at my sons the entire time they set up the tent and clearly wasn't happy we were there. At some point we tried to identify the species and looked up info on it and it was a species that was capable of killing small deer, so it was likely capable of killing one of us or permanently maiming us.

We set up the tent behind a lone tree to give us visual cover from the road and positioned the tent to be visually behind another tree from another direction to hide our tent. Both trees were in bad shape due to the multi-year drought that actually ended while we were there, but had been ongoing for like four years or more before we showed up.

So we made a point of "watering" both of those trees by peeing at the base of the trees. They greened up and improved our visual cover so we were harder to spot.

With peeing there frequently and occassionally pooping nearby as well, we began seeing more insects. Once more insects showed up, rodents and other small animals soon followed.

Our big angry bird began to eat better and likely realized this was somehow due to our presence and he quit giving us nasty looks.

There was a copse of trees some yards away and after some months of us being there, the angry bird stopped trying to chase away other birds from its territory and several more of its species showed up, built nests in those trees and laid eggs.

And then the big angry bird REALLY was fine with us hanging there and likely its presence is why the large coyote pack in the area that did, in fact, take down one or more deer a night stayed away from that corner of that field. The bird likely would kill a coyote too.

Big predators are intelligent animals. They are capable of figuring out that your presence is somehow improving their hunting ground and if you leave them alone, they will leave you alone.