In Weis and Butler’s Salt Marshes the authors recall the ongoing destruction and disappearance of salt marshes across the country. Though the authors condemn humanity’s “dominion over nature” and criticize us for recklessly exploiting the wetlands to cater to our personal needs, I believe their criticism is a bit harsh. Although the salt marshes have been gradually disappearing since the late 17^th century, there were certain periods of time where the exploitation of the wetlands was somewhat essential to our society’s growth and survival.

Salt marshes have been manipulated as early as 1675, when the Dutch settlers migrated to the United States. To the settlers, the salt marshes were initially seen as source of infestation and disease. At the same time, since the wetlands couldn’t be used as farmland, in order for the settlers to be able to harvest and farm crops, they had to dry up portions of the wetlands. Because the settlers lived during the pre-scientific era, they knew nothing about the environmental consequences and effects the destruction of salt marshes would have. Not only were their actions a result of being oblivious and unaware, even more so, the facts we know about the productivity and biodiversity within the salt marshes had not yet been discovered.

As a result, I would propose that the actions and behavior of the colonists could be categorized as “innocent destruction” of the salt marshes. I don’t believe that the colonists can be blamed or held responsible for the environmental degradation associated with the salt marsh destruction. In many aspects, this elimination of wetlands was somewhat necessary for the survival and success of the newly established communities at that time. Moreover, were it not for the dikes and sluice gates created, many parts of New England, like Manhattan and Meadowlands, wouldn’t exist today.

On the other hand, the destruction of marshes in recent years cannot be labeled as “innocent.” With the full knowledge of environmental consequences along with scientific evidence proving how harmful destruction of wetlands can be, there are no excuses for our actions and exploitation of salt marshes. In this case, I believe we have taken advantage of the nature around us without fully considering the vast amount of negative effects our actions generate. Nowadays, there is significant salt hay farming but for reasons other than basic survival. Farmers are exploiting this resource in order to make large profits. In addition, we are draining marshes and filling them in all because someone decided they wanted to expand a city or town beyond the land’s original topographic borders. Who are we to decide we want to expand the amount of dry land just to satisfy our own human needs. What about the animals that live in the salt marshes, or the organisms that feed off of the salt marsh plants? How will they be able to survive?

Furthermore, are we correct in assuming we can take any unowned, undeveloped land and call it ours? Not necessarily, but at the same time, this has existed as standard human practice for hundreds of years. Even so, I think it is hard to justify why our human desires and needs – which in this case seem excessive rather than essential to our survival – are more important than any other creatures’ needs?

I am very indecisive when picking sides, so I think that the colonists were innocently destructing the salt marshes and the land in general, but I think that as time progressed, and as scientific knowledge of consequences of altering the land and air composition through unnatural means augmented, people and corporations were unconcerned about the short and long-term impact even with their head knowledge. I wonder how our world in America would differ if the majority of Native Americans still had continued to have respect for nature. The colonists didn’t have the scientific technology and knowledge to know that what they were doing was wrong because they were used to building dikes and altering nature in Europe. They put their lives as the first priority, and put nature in an inferior level.

The Scientific American considered the salt marshes more evil than good because they only associated them with mosquitos and insects, even though they did try to find some good in salt marshes,  For example, corporations know that deforestation is wrong, but they still cut trees in Brazil, destroying the Amazon rainforest, which is a biologically productive natural resource, and the homes of many plant and animal species. Instead of using/altering the natural resources  for survival like the colonists did, the corporations are exploiting nature with full knowledge of the biological consequences because by the late 1900s, especially by the time the environmental movement was in full force in the 1960s, science has caught up with technology. For example, JFK airport was constructed by draining salt marshes in the 1940s without knowledge of the future impact, but people realized the consequences many years later with gains in scientific knowledge.

Also, I think that the world is obsessed with the idea of convenience, even at the expense of natural resources. Because we take things for granted and have the “I need it now” syndrome , the public usually ignores where consumer products come from.  In addition, because the world is in the process of becoming completely industrialized and globalized, many corporations have decided to get the most profit with the least effort, which usually meant using corrupt, unethical ways; many have tried to get in between the laws. Most of the human population, especially in urban environments, still have the perception that they are masters over nature that has come from the early colonists of the United States.

In Europe, in the 1600’s, there was no real sewage system.  When the population grew, the problem grew worse and illness was common because of the deplorable conditions.  Which is why when, around that time, settlers started coming over to America, they did not know to take precautions to preserve the environment and how to responsibly take care of their waste.  The earth was plentiful and seemingly never-ending, and the life span was short; there was no reason to care about how their actions effected the environment.

Before the settlers came, nature was relatively untouched. The Native Americans were respectful when it came to their waste and never killed in excess.  As it says in City at the Water’s Edge by Betsy McCully, “All this wonderful abundance was threatened as soon as the Europeans began to colonize the region” (80). The mantra of the settlers was that undomesticated land was wasted land.  Swamps were not useful, and therefore had to go.  To some extent, the settlers changed the land to survive.  They needed somewhere to make food the only way they knew how: by planting.  Surviving was their first goal, anything after that was secondary and unimportant.

Restraint was a concept the colonist should have learned from the Native Americans. By not exercising some restraint, ecosystems and entire species were destroyed and demolished. Pollution was another big cause for the permanent disturbance of salt marshes. In New York, the pollution was not handled responsibly; in 1929, a report stated that from a population of ten million, one billion gallons of sewage was dumped in the waterways, reducing the oxygen in the water and thereby killing the sea life that requires a certain level of oxygen to survive. Dead fish were a common sight, and an incredible waste of both a food source, and nature.  In 1877, an article in the New York Times stated: “…The fishing too. Which was formerly excellent, has been irreparably destroyed.”

Sadly, it was not until the 1880’s that some legislation was passed to attempt to overturn the massive destruction of the environment that had been getting progressively worse since the arrival of the Dutch. Even this act, the New York Harbor Act, did very little to prevent accidental oil spills or monitor people with disregard to the little. By this time, science and the law had both understood the consequences of the irreparable damage that was being done.  Unfortunately, the majority of the population refused to care or do much about it.  Still today there are people who have a complete disregard to the effect they have on the environment.  The people had an excuse to abuse their environment when their only real goal was to survive harsh conditions, and later when they did not know better.  However, it became apparent in later years, when the technology and the knowledge of what they were doing were available, that the people simply could not be bothered to change their ways.  At a result, we are now faced with the consequences of callously causing irreparable damage to our environment.

Salt marshes have been a destination for many settlers throughout history. They are attractive pieces of land to settle due to the low topography that has hardly any rocks. This allowed settlers to move in and easily develop the coast without much effort. Before the introduction of modern environmental studies in the 20^th century, the colonists had little to no emphasis on caring for the environment as a whole. The colonists’ outlook when utilizing the environment was to benefit from it without any real concern for its well-being.

Now, the tides have turned. There has been an incredible growth of knowledge related to the environment. Most importantly is the changing of public opinion about environmentalism. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, is widely recognized as launching modern environmentalism in the public sphere. One main aspect of Silent Spring is that it emphasized the horrors of pollution. The book was widely read across the country and resulted in a greater awareness of the ills of harming the environment.

Before modern environmentalism, salt marsh settlers did not have a cultural or societal emphasis on environmentalism. The colonists manipulated nature for its resources: timber, land, animals, and many more. I believe the damage of the salt marshes at the time was indeed an “innocent destruction.” The settlers did not take college classes about the problems with destroying ecosystems and changing natural habitats. They merely knew what they needed and saw a solution in the form of utilizing the natural resources surrounding them.

However after the widespread dissemination of information about the importance of environmental conservation, there is no excuse for people mindlessly destroying salt marshes. Major environmental devastations after prevalent awareness about the issue are wrong. Still, it is difficult to blame the colonists for destroying salt marshes; they did not know what they were ruining. It is only after a rising modern commitment to environmentalism that people can be faulted for, at the very least, not even considering the problems with destroying our vulnerable environment. Hopefully the modern commitment to environmentalism that has grown since Carson’s seminal work will continue to help save nature from the perils of pollution, disregard, and human machination.

If you were to ask anyone to list ten things that had a major impact on US history and its development, I can guarantee you that not a soul would mention salt marshes. And yet, this environmental resource played a crucial role in how Americans adapted to their new land. They quickly discovered a plethora of ways in which it, along with the surrounding areas, could be usurped. However, the increasing reliance on salt marshes soon bordered on exploitation, as little heed seemed to be given to signs of apparent deterioration. Unfortunately, the way in which salt marshes have been treated is an inevitable consequence of the ultimate reality of societal, agricultural, and urban development, in which there is a tradeoff between improving the human condition and maintaining the condition of our natural resources.

The way in which people interacted with and consequently impacted salt marshes depended on the time period. For example, colonists had an agricultural lifestyle and took advantage of the easily arable land. With few rocks and much fertile soil, it was the prime location for developing farmland. In addition to planting crops, they also used the area as pasturelands for their livestock. The products of animals in this area appeared to be superior, but at a cost to the current animal population: the grazing caused a decrease in some types that lived there. Furthermore, the presence of carbon dioxide and other chemicals increased, thereby causing a disturbance to the chemical balance of the atmosphere. The improvement of one natural resource, farming land, thus came at an expense to another natural resource, the salt marsh.

The focus of American development over the years has shifted from an agrarian lifestyle to an urban one. The clear turning point occurred during the Industrial Revolution. At that time, salt marshes were abused in many new ways: they were tidally restricted by dams, polluted by runoff and sewage, and ditched for mosquito control. The intent was to increase productivity, but at times it was counterproductive. Drying up marshes, for example, actually increased the amount of mosquitos present because killifish, which keep the population of the pesky insects in check, consequently died off. The more US society urbanized, the more salt marshes were impacted, until Congress began making concerted efforts to preserve and protect them. Some of the consequences, such as changes in temperature, eutrophication, and salt production, were easily noticeable. However, salt marshes, renowned for their resilience, only began to display various other signs of being impacted after many years of mistreatment.

While humans clearly contributed to the negative changes in salt marshes, they did not intend to do so out of malice. In their attempts to adapt to the land and make life better, they had to make decisions as to what was a priority: preserving a salt marsh or utilizing it so that they could survive. Indeed, there is a finite amount of resources in the word. Anything that humans do entails usurping some of what is available, and doing so at a cost. Every choice we have has some sort of impact, even if it is unbeknownst to us at the current moment. For example, society depends on using cell phones, but we do not know what the long-term effects of the usage will be on our bodies or our environment. Cellphones are now considered a convenience that contributes to the development of the modern world. Similarly, taking advantage of the salt marshes was the way in which past societies attempted to develop, too.

Of course, with hindsight being 20-20, we can see the many flaws in how previous generations behaved. It is rather tempting to play the blame game and to theorize what their motives were as well as how they should have behaved. Yet only now can we truly see the harmful effects in their totality, with the mistreatment having accumulated over the years.  Our way of life significantly improved, it is our ethical responsibility to use and explore alternative methods that are more environmentally friendly. The fact that people today do not know the crucial role  salt marshes play in our ecosystem is extremely depressing.  We must act now by preserving and protecting them, before they are literally both out of sight and out of mind.

The United States has been known throughout history to have an obsession with expansion: When we discover a patch of unused land, we seize it and mold it until it suits our needs. Since people have been largely unable to appreciate nature for nature’s sake without destroying it, we have had to create national parks for this purpose. A similar situation exists with salt marshes. I believe that we as humans have an innate need for instant gratification and we change what doesn’t immediately serve us. Therefore, the destruction of the salt marshes appears to me a representation of a lack of values and thoughtless action towards the environment.

We have been modifying salt marshes since as early as the 17th century. Dutch settlers needed land to survive so they installed dikes in salt marsh areas to prevent flooding. Mud banks and dikes were also built in order to create a landscape conducive to the production of salt hay. Early settlers discovered that salt hay was useful for bedding for horses and cattle, thatch for barn roofs, road traction, among many other things (Salt Marshes, 92). The destruction of salt marshes in earlier times seems less of an act of thoughtlessness than in the present day. Settlers had fewer resources and technology, and salt marshes were necessary sources for their survival. They probably had also had less knowledge regarding environmental consequences of their actions, and this makes their modification of the marshes seem more condonable.

In current times, however, we have taken what earlier settlers started and gone completely overboard. Now that we are an industrialized society, we have turned to salt marshes for urban development. For example, marshes have been filled to create airports and highways (Salt Marshes, 95), entities not necessary for our survival. Also, in recent years people have taken to the idea of living by the ocean and to do so have removed vegetation from the salt marsh borders. This destroys the habitats of the organisms in the marshes and the marsh itself. Other consequences come about as well, such as chemical changes in the soil (96). Neighborhoods are destined to develop but we now have the knowledge and the tools to choose where and how to construct them. We disregard the natural environment when making such decisions because it satisfies us in the moment.

One of the most troubling parts of salt marsh destruction is pollution. Human beings are notorious for polluting Mother Earth and salt marshes are no exception. We dump pesticides and the like into salt marshes because it gratifies us in some other way. We know what we are doing, as Weis and Butler state on page 128, but we do it anyway. The label of Scourge, an insecticide used to combat salt marsh mosquitoes, reads, “This product is toxic to fish and birds. Do not apply to lakes, streams, or ponds. ” Scourge is still being applied. We are also presented with healthier alternatives, such as organic methods, but because they require more time and effort, we ignore them. These pollutants affect our health as well so it makes little sense that we are so careless. Overall, while the settlers had less to work with and their alteration of the marshes makes more sense, our present obsession with what serves us in the moment (in spite of our increased knowledge and tools) and lack of environmental ethics have led to the massive destruction of the marshes.