Some areas defined as wetlands are far more valuable than others.
I don't think that's true. Wetlands are an important part of a local ecology and form a significant part of the food chain. Its not like this house has a better view or that house has more yard. Every wetlands plays the same significant role in the region where it is located.
Wetlands that serve as coastal barriers to storm surges and other forms of storm damage, and specific wetlands that are particularly important habitat should get more protection than many of the less important areas that wetland protection regulation has effected. With better targeting of the protection you can get more real protection, at less financial and political cost.
Again, I don't know how you develop a grading system for wetlands. They are as important to every local ecology as good air is to humans. Back in the early 90s, Saddam drained the water out of the wetlands in southern Iraq. I forget why the freak did it, but it wreaked havoc with the local ecology. Plant and bird life began to die off in the surrounding area at a rapid rate, and the desert began to expand. One of the first things that Brits did once they got control of the Basra region was to break down the damn Saddam had constructed and reflooded the area. It was done very quietly but they must have been getting strong orders from someone to do it because it was done so quickly after gaining control. The point is you take away any wetlands and you interrupt the ecology and the food chain. For a while, the ecology may try to adapt but if the damage is too severe, the ecology will fail.
Did you know that its believed that Iraq's climate was much more benign than it is now, allowing the rise of such marvels as the hanging gardens of Babylon just south of where Baghdad is now? In fact, when the city of Baghdad rose to power, the climate was considered more more benign, closer to the climates of Greece and Italy with more rain. What they believe caused the significant change in climate was the extensive deforestation of the hills and mts. north of Baghdad. Now most of Iraq is desert.
Also I think that we probably should have a specific law for wetlands protection, rather then regulations where created under laws concerning navigable waterways.
You want to divide up all these things like they are separate and autonomous from the rest. It doesn't work that way. Going back to the house analogy....will the house be okay if you take out its windows or remove part of its roof? Not likely. In the same way, if you protect a particular wetlands but you don't protect the waterways that feed water and silt into that wetlands, the wetlands could still die from a lack of water, or from contaminated water. The ecology is all interlocked.........everything has to be protected to some degree or eventually, the whole system will falter and die.
I am not against logging or commercial fishing or farming.......we need those things to survive as a species. Its indiscriminate logging or indiscriminate fishing or indiscrimate farming that I oppose.
One example of indiscriminate behavior allowed under Bush's recent edicts is the logging of old growth forests of which we have so few. These are forests that are unique in nature, containing a biodiversity that does not exist in any of the man made forests or even second growth forests caused by forest fires. Often, there are rare species of mammals and birds not found anywhere else on the planet. In the old growth jungles of the Amazon, they are finding natural cures for diseases and believe there is much more to be found.
To those who care about these things, none of what the current EPA says makes a lot of sense. And to go back to the original topic, there is no wetlands that is too small or too unimportant. IMO they all deserve the same level of protection.
ted |
