Wetland Regulation and Wildlife Habitat Protection: Proposals for Florida
![handle is hein.journals/helr8 and id is 371 raw text is: WETLAND REGULATION AND WILDLIFE HABITAT
PROTECTION: PROPOSALS FOR FLORIDA
George F. Gramling, III*
Just as all life on earth is interdependent, wildlife and wetlands' are
inextricably linked. Wildlife depends on wetland habitat for survival more
than any other ecosystem.2 Yet wetland habitat is being destroyed at an
alarming rate. The struggle between man and nature is decidedly one-
sided: all over the country dragline buckets, suction pumps and ditching
machines make short work of wetlands, some of them thousands of years
old.3 Over the last thirty years the United States has suffered an average
annual loss of 600,000 acres of wetlands.4 Since its inception our country
has lost more than half of its wetlands.5 Approximately eighty percent of
all riparian habitats have also been destroyed.6 The loss of wetlands is
deceptively costly. Although the importance of swamps, bogs and
marshes may not be readily apparent, loss of wetlands increases man's
susceptibility to disasters such as uncontrolled flooding, soil erosion,
water pollution, sediment accumulation and destruction of fish and
wildlife.
* B.A. 1980 Emory University; J.D. 1983 University of Florida College of Law.
1. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' definition of wetlands is standard:
[W]etlands means those areas that are inundated or saturated by surface or ground water at a
frequency and duration sufficient to support, and that under normal circumstances do support,
a prevalence of vegetation typically adapted for life in saturated soil conditions. Wetlands
generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas.
33 C.F.R. § 323.2(c) (1983). According to the classification system recently developed for
the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the common denominator shared by most wetlands is
soil or substrate that is at least periodically saturated with or covered with water.
BIOLOGICAL SERV. PROGRAM, U.S. FISH & WILDLIFE SERV., CLASSIFICATION OF WET-
LANDS AND DEEPWATER HABITATS OF THE UNITED STATES 3 (1979).
2. See THE CONSERVATION FOUND'N, STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT 1982, at 249
(1982).
3. See generally J. KUSLER, OUR NATIONAL WETLAND HERITAGE 11-15 (1983) (or-
igins of wetlands).
4. See THE CONSERVATION FOUND'N, supra note 2, at 249.
5. See Arnett, Water and Wetlands: Policies, Planning, and Management, in TRANS-
ACTIONS OF THE FORTY-EIGHTH NORTH AMERICAN WILDLIFE AND NATURAL RESOURCES
CONFERENCE 476 (K. Sabol ed. 1983).
6. See THE CONSERVATION FOUND'N, supra note 2, at 249.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/helr8&div=14&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Wetland Regulation and Wildlife Habitat Protection: Proposals for Florida
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most