After reading through this week’s chapter, it seems pretty clear that marsh restoration isn’t all that simple. The solution isn’t obvious at all – attempting to restore the wetlands through human intervention may not necessarily be better than just letting the non-native plants grow freely. Weis and Butler make it very clear, marsh restoration is not always proven to be successful; the “if you build it they will come” philosophy is no guarantee.

When removing unwanted species and changing the elevation and hydrology of the marshes, there is still a chance that the native plants and organisms won’t return. Therefore, I think this idea of “no net loss of wetlands” goal is greatly flawed. I don’t believe that someone who is destroying a salt marsh somewhere should be able to “redeem” themselves, on an ecological level so to speak, just by improving another salt marsh elsewhere. That person has still destroyed a salt marsh existing in “location x” and now that specific area will be depleted of wetlands forever. Furthermore, especially if these marsh restorations aren’t necessarily successful, there is no way to argue that one seemingly positive action (marsh restoration) can negate a definitively negative action (marsh destruction).The National Academy of Science put it simply, “Wetland restoration shouldn’t be used to mitigate avoidable destruction of other wetlands until it can be scientifically demonstrated that the replacement ecosystems are of equal or better functioning.”

In fact, from reading this chapter, it is apparent that the attempts to restore marshes can sometimes hurt the environment even more; in this case, the “solutions” that are being implemented are perpetuating more environmental problems.

Some of the efforts to remove the non-native species in favor of the native Spartina include using herbicides and toxic chemicals which are actually damaging the environment. How can one justify their attempts to restore the marshes when they are still hurting the environment in other ways? This is, in effect, a very hypocritical procedure.

At the same time, removal of Phragmites may not necessarily yield successful results. There are many factors that must be taken into consideration when trying to produce a productive salt marsh through human intervention completely void of Phragmites. Hence, why risk exacerbating the problem if the current situation isn’t all that bad? As the chapter explains, despite the fact that they have been labeled as a weed in the past, Phragmites are not just deadweights taking up space in the salt marsh; moreover, they aren’t “ecologically useless” as they can still serve as proper food for certain organisms and contribute to the creation of a habitat.

Thus, Sheehan’s quote encapsulates the main idea of this chapter impeccably, “Phragmites, it’s green most of the time, and it ain’t condos.” Although the presence of Phragmites may not have been included in environmentalists ideal vision of salt marshes, it is certainly better than the presence of condominiums, buildings and sidewalks – in other words, total marsh destruction.