Discovering the Unknown Landscape

A History Of America's Wetlands

Ann Vileisis

• Publisher: Island Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781559633154, 9781559633147
• eBook ISBN: 9781610912648
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The rapidly disappearing wetlands that once spread so abundantly across the American continent serve an essential and irreplaceable ecological function. Yet for centuries, Americans have viewed them with disdain. Beginning with the first European settlers, we have thought of them as sinkholes of disease and death, as landscapes that were worse than useless unless they could be drained, filled, paved or otherwise "improved." As neither dry land, which can be owned and controlled by individuals, nor bodies of water, which are considered a public resource, wetlands have in recent years been at the center of controversy over issues of environmental protection and property rights.

The confusion and contention that surround wetland issues today are the products of a long and convoluted history. In Discovering the Unknown Landscape, Anne Vileisis presents a fascinating look at that history, exploring how Americans have thought about and used wetlands from Colonial times through the present day. She discusses the many factors that influence patterns of land use -- ideology, economics, law, perception, art -- and examines the complicated interactions among those factors that have resulted in our contemporary landscape. As well as chronicling the march of destruction, she considers our seemingly contradictory tradition of appreciating wetlands: artistic and literary representations, conservation during the Progressive Era, and recent legislation aimed at slowing or stopping losses.

Discovering the Unknown Landscape is an intriguing synthesis of social and environmental history, and a valuable examination of how cultural attitudes shape the physical world that surrounds us. It provides important context to current debates, and clearly illustrates the stark contrast between centuries of beliefs and policies and recent attempts to turn those longstanding beliefs and policies around. Vileisis's clear and engaging prose provides a new and compelling understanding of modern-day environmental conflicts.

Notes

Chapter 1

1

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949; reprint, 1969), 205.

2

Ralph W Tiner, Jr., Wetlands of the U.S.: Current Status and Recent Trends (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, 1984), 34; Thomas E. Dahl and Craig E. Johnson, Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States, Mid-1970s to Mid-1980s (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1991), 3.

3

Tiner, 18–25.

4

John Mitchell, “Our Disappearing Wetlands,” National Geographic, Oct. 1992, 8.

5

Arthur E. Morgan, “The Drainage of the Mississippi Delta,” Manufacturers Record, 8 Sept. 1910, quoted in Robert W. Harrison, Alluvial Empire: Drainage in the Lower Mississippi Valley (Little Rock, Ark.: Pioneer Press, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 1961), 227.

6

Theodore Steinberg, Slide Mountain, or The Folly of Owning Nature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), passim; Fred P. Bosselman, “Limitations Inherent in the Title to Wetlands at Common Law,” Stanford Environmental Law Journal 15, no. 2 (June 1996), 247–337.

7

Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science (1968). The concept of a “commons” calls to mind Hardin’s seminal “tragedy of the commons” essay. When farmers shared a public pasture, Hardin posited, it was in each individual’s best interest to graze as many cows as possible. Ultimately, however, too many cows would degrade the pasture and leave the community with a worthless mudpatch. According to Hardin, this metaphor described what would happen as the growing human population consumed the earth’s diminishing resources. Because most wetlands have a commons component, their public values are subject to the same tragic degradation. Though most wetlands are privately owned, owners rarely steward the public values of wetlands.

8

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, National Water Quality Inventory (Washington, D.C., 1988), 84.

9

Bill Wilen, telephone interview by author, 26 Sept. 1997.

10

Tiner, 1.

11

Tom Horton, “Chesapeake Bay: Hanging in the Balance,” National Geographic, June 1993, 23.

Chapter 2

1

John Smith, The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles (London, 1624; reprint, Readex Microprint Corporation, 1966), 169.

2

Thomas E. Dahl, Wetlands: Losses in the United States, 1780s to 1980s (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, 1990), 6. Although the term wetland was not coined until the 1950s, I use it throughout the book.

3

Adriaen Van Der Donck, Description of New Netherlands (1656), quoted in Percy W. Bidwell, History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620–1860 (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institute, 1925), 7.

4

Isaac DeRasiers (1628), quoted at Hackensack Meadows Interpretive Center display, Hackensack Meadows, Lyndhurst, New Jersey. 1993.

5

Giovanni Verrazzano quoted in Thomas J. Lyon, This Incomperable Lande: A Book of American Nature Writing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989), 24–25.

6

Elizabeth Barlow, The Forests and Wetlands of New York City (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), 5, 31, 64; Bill O. Wilen and Ralph W. Tiner, Jr., “Wetlands of the United States,” in Wetlands of the World I, ed. D. F. Whigham et al. (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1993), 586; William Niering, personal correspondence, 14 June 1996.

7

John Teal and Mildred Teal, Life and Death of the Salt Marsh (New York: Ballantine, 1969), 84–101; Robert A. Chabreck, Coastal Marshes: Ecology and Wildlife Management (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 32.

8

George Reiger, “Symbols of the Marsh,” Audubon, July 1990, 54–55.

9

Robert Beverly, The History of the Present State of Virginia, ed. Louis B. Wright (1705; reprint, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947), 121–27, quoted in Joseph V. Siry, Marshes of the Ocean Shore: Development of an Ecological Ethic (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1984), 23.

10

Siry, 21.

11

Chabreck, 5; John A. Shimer, Field Guide to Land Forms in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 7–15.

12

Timothy Silver, A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists, and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 26.

13

William A. Niering, Wetlands, Audubon Society Nature ...

Table of contents

• About Island Press
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• ONE - A Landscape on the Periphery
• TWO - A Mosaic of Native Swamps, Bogs, and Marshes
• THREE - A Nation Founded on Wetlands
• FOUR - Exploring the Unknown Landscape
• FIVE - The Drainage Imperative Codified
• SIX - Wetlands Portrayed and Envisioned
• SEVEN - Machines in the Wetland Gardens
• EIGHT - New Voices for the Wetlands
• NINE - The Double Agenda
• TEN - In the Path of the Boom
• ELEVEN - Citizens and Lawmakers Enlist in the Wetlands Cause
• TWELVE - Federal Bulldozers and Draglines
• THIRTEEN - With New Tools in Hand
• FOURTEEN - The Reagan Agenda Challenges Wetland Gains
• FIFTEEN - Making and Breaking the Farm Connection
• SIXTEEN - A Contentious Era for Wetlands
• SEVENTEEN - The Promise of Restoration
• EIGHTEEN - The Lessons of History
• Notes
• Appendix - Some Common and Scientific Names of Wetland Plants
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• Island Press Board of Directors