America's Forested Wetlands: From Wasteland to Valued Resource

From the darkest, most forbidding swamp to the smallest soggy bog at the side of a housing development, wetlands provide invaluable ecological services to life on earth. Yet, prior to the 1930s, few people worried about the mounting loss of these essential landscapes.

America’s Forested Wetlands chronicles the history of American attitudes and actions toward the ambiguous transitional areas between dry land and open water. From the clear-cutting of cypress swamps and the wholesale filling an...