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 The
natural world obviously serves as the infrastructure for all human
activities. It supports our physical and economic development. Ecosystem services are quite valuable and quantifiable.
In addition to hunting, fishing and bird-watching, forest-based recreation such
as hiking, mountain biking and whitewater rafting bring hundreds of millions of
dollars to our local economies in the South every year. Experts are
currently working to translate the scientific knowledge into economic terms.
(The pic at the top illustrates that 30
% of Southeast forest wetland have been lost.)
 Wetlands are valuable for their own ecological worth. They are a critical
component of the complicated web of life on our planet. Beyond this deep and
unique intrinsic value, the ecosystem services of wetlands are phenomenal. Any
single service by itself would make wetland restoration worthwhile but we in
fact benefit from all of them. Yet we continue to ditch and drain wetlands for
pine plantations that ultimately end up in landfills in the form of packaging,
office supplies and other paper products.
(The pic to the left of a large pine plantation in SE North Carolina depicts the conversion of bottom land wetland forests to
plantations which is the leading cause of freshwater forested wetlands loss in
the South. USFWS -2000)
To
learn more about the importance of the critical ecosystem services provided by
wetlands click here
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