Excerpt
WETLANDS are valuable to mankind, however one looks at the many functions they serve (1, 2, 5). But the values of wetlands usually do not accrue to those individuals who own them. More often the values accrue to society in general.
Owners of wetlands readily convert them to other uses for immediate, often short-term personal economic gain. Of 215 million acres of wetlands in the United States at the time of the country's settlement, no more than 99 million acres remained by the mid-1970s, a loss of 54 percent (4). Wetlands in the United States continue to be drained at the annual rate of 458,000 acres (4).
Most wetland losses—87 percent—are due to agricultural development, which has always been and continues to be the greatest threat to the inland wetlands that remain. Many states and the federal government, particularly the Fish and Wildlife Service, are engaged in wetland preservation efforts, mostly for wildlife habitat. Since 1972, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has also been engaged in wetland preservation through the Water Bank Program.
For anyone interested in restoring drained wetlands, there is plenty of work to do. Any drained wetland …
Footnotes
Carl Madsen is project leader with the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Route 1, Box 76, Fergus Falls, Minnesota 56537.
- Copyright 1986 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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