We are living in an era of unprecedented conservation efforts: hybrid cars, organic produce, An Inconvenient Truth. However, we are also living in an era of unprecedented destruction to the natural world. In the past 150 years alone, we as a species have wreaked more havoc upon the natural environment than our collective ancestors. It can be argued that this was initially a form of “innocent destruction,” that our predecessors were not consciously aware of the monumental after effects of the abuse of natural resources. It can also be argued that the Western culture which eventually infiltrated the coastland salt marshes of the United States is deeply rooted in a culture of greed, and thus, a conglomerate of thoughtless actions has built up to the current destruction of salt marshes, amongst other natural habitats. 

The advent of the Industrial Revolution created a world unseen before: an urban landscape thriving on industry and its subsequent economy. Things were being produced and services were being provided for profit. But this system of goods and services is not new or novel. The scale of it, however, is. Examining the Native Americans (e.g. the Lenapes) who a few generations ago inhabited the same areas dominated by smog and factories at the turn of the 20th century would show there was a system of economy in place, but a much more egalitarian one. Each member of the society took merely what was enough for him/herself and the family or community he/she was providing for. Even if one were to move away from the communal aspect of Native American life and examine other cultures, one would realize these are cultures invested in trade rather than industry. Pre-industrial trade was checked by a variety of factors: travel routes, time, specialization of labor. Those checks created a flourishing economy, but kept human use and abuse of natural resources in check, as well.

With respect to the colonists, they of course had major reasons to engage in “innocent destruction,” for the sake of mere survival. However, they were met with indigenous people who had been surviving for generations beforehand. This is not limited to the New York area, but to all areas subject to Western colonization. As previously stated, there is a greed culture tied to the Western psyche. To take a huge step back, one of the major causes for colonization was profit, through channels of religion, glory, or money. The colonists completely disregarded the “eco-friendly” habits of the Native Americans for their own personal gains.

The ways of the Native Americans were completely lost when the efficiency of modern industry came about. When profit became the sole motivator with little to no regulation, the environment suffered terribly. Any and all reverence for the natural world went out the window. In the early 20th century, northern Queens become a literal dumping group in the years immediately following New York’s industrialization period, even referred to as the “valley of ashes” in The Great Gatsby. The area was eventually buried and paved over to create Flushing Meadows-Corona Park with little attention paid to what those substances would mean for the neighborhood’s health and the natural surroundings. In addition, as industry flourished, so did the need for usable land, and since there were no immediate uses for salt marsh estuaries, many developers in the 1950s began to uproot these ecosystems and fill them to create areas for homes, businesses, and public spaces, with no real understanding or interest in the consequences.

Luckily, many safeguards have been put in place to preserve the remaining salt marshes we have. In addition to providing scenery, their ability to act as a buffer against storm surges has proved very utilitarian. Considering more than half of the United States population lives near the coastland, it is incredibly important we conserve these natural habitats. Although there is no reversing what has already been done, it is critical we as a society find ways to check industry and prevent anymore destruction to salt marshes and other natural environments.

Many of the worst things done to the environment throughout history were done without knowledge of their harmful effects. When Europeans first started colonizing the Americas, they saw the new lands as resources to use for their benefit. At the time, the standard in Europe regarding land was that if land was not usable for agricultural purposes, it was useless. This standard was simply based on a lack of proper knowledge that would come out years later. One of the biggest mistakes that these settlers made was draining the salt marshes.

Before the settlers arrived, Native Americans occupied the land, and were very respectful. They came from societies that focused on hunting and gathering, and a lot of Native American beliefs were based on respect and love for nature. The natives took only what they needed from nature and always made sure to “give back” by performing ceremonies to honor nature. European society was very different, and to them, respect for land and nature was a rare quality. They used the land somewhat carelessly because they needed it for survival. It was no surprise that when they started settling in the Americas they needed arable land as quickly as possible.

Salt marshes, seemingly useless to the first settlers, are actually an extremely productive ecosystem. Various organisms depend upon salt marshes for all or part of their lives, and salt marshes produce more basic food energy per acre than any other known ecosystem. Salt marshes also keep natural water clean by filtering out sediments, nutrients, and other toxins from upland runoff. The European settlers of course had no idea the harm they were causing when draining these salt marshes – they were simply trying to survive. They had an agriculture-based lifestyle, and destroying the salt marshes provided easily accessible land to serve their purposes. It would be unfair to blame them completely for the damages they caused to the ecosystem during this time because they simply did not know any better. Though the side effects were extremely harmful, it was probably not intentional in any way. The environmental cost of creating arable land was unknown to them at the time, and they were simply doing what they needed to get by.

There is no excuse however, for the continued destruction of salt marshes today. Since the mid 1900’s we have been aware of the damage we inflict by destroying salt marshes. We continue to learn more and more about how precious our ecosystem is and how important it is for the future of our planet to preserve it. However, we have continually contributed to the destruction of salt marshes, along with other natural resources, to make room for our industrialized society. These behaviors should not be tolerated, especially since we now have knowledge about how harmful this is for the environment, which the European settlers did not have. Somehow we still manage to eat away at our natural resources and destroy our planet even with this knowledge that our ancestors lacked.

We can blame whomever we’d like for the destruction of salt marshes, but in reality were just blaming ourselves. It’s now our job, being more educated, to put a stop to the destruction of our planet’s natural resources and work to fix the destruction we’ve caused in the past.

While for most of modern human history the European way of living has been depicted as the best and most superior way of living, this has, as the result of more recent reevaluations of our historical lineage, come under fire for many good reasons. One aspect of this changing perspective is the view that it is destructive European practices that began a cycle of environmental destruction and natural resource waste that continues to this very day, particularly in New World regions which would have had vastly different natural trajectories had European colonizers not arrived.

This argument is that as Europeans occupied the New World and expanded their industrialization of the old world, they rapidly eroded and denigrated the various environments, completely disrupted ecosystems and food chains, and rapidly depleted natural resources. This trend can actually be traced to pre-industrial times when in order to implement more “efficient” agricultural practices, Europeans, through artificial means, transformed distinctly non-agricultural ecosystems into farmland and, through non-sustainable farming practices depleted existing farmland of nutrients essential to producing nutritious and bountiful crops.

Europeans are often contrasted with various New World cultures which, historically, have a relationship with the environment and natural resources that is by far superior to the European- Environmental dynamic. From a anthropological perspective, New World cultures are characterized by rituals emphasizing a conservation and appreciation of nature. In many Native American cultures, for example, food preparation rituals are designed to utilize as much of the food source at hand as possible. For example, almost every single part of a hunted animal, no matter how small, is used for some purpose or another, whether nutritional or for a cultural practice that is meant to utilize it. In these cultures there also tends to be defined rituals used before eating that usually fall along the lines of thanking certain spiritual forces for the food at hand. In general, the more scarce and unsustainable a resource is the more rituals put in place to celebrate and appreciate that resource. It has been argued that these cultural practices that explain why during times when ecosystems occupied by Native American groups, such as East coast salt marshes, they flourished and sustained themselves.

The flip side of this argument is that it is European cultural practices, practices said to be characterized by the view that natural resources are meant to be fully used not conserved, that are responsible for the decay and destruction of ecosystems that came to be occupied by these groups. While this is certainly a valid and logical argument, I would like to argue that there is a are encompassing and precise answer out there as to why colonized ecosystems, such as the salt marshes, came to destruction.

The first of these arguments is that it is agricultural practices, not the cultural practices associated with agricultural society that are responsible for environmental destruction. Anthropological and agricultural research has indicated that while agricultural practices allow for more efficient food production and larger population growth, foraging and hunter gather practices provide a better option for long term and stable growth. So, to be more precise, it is the technology and characteristics of agricultural practices such as overplanting and forest clearing that cause environmental damage,  not cultural practices themselves. It can be argued, however that it is a lack of cultural practices designed to appreciate nature that exacerbate the extent of the harm caused by agricultural practices.

Throughout history, there have been a select few themes that we see countries entering into wars for. Religious warfare, political domination and overall need for power have driven nations into total war with one another. An overarching theme that we see is that more land leads to more power. This is why Europeans all competed with one another to find new areas of exploration. Although the Portuguese and Spanish had started off trying to find new routes to India for spices, the day that Christopher Columbus accidently stumbled upon the Americas was a different kind of turning point. The knowledge that there was a whole new world out there was exciting to the Europeans because it meant there was a new frontier to economic growth. Finding the Americas provided a possibility of imperializing a huge mass of land, people and all. There were natural resources that had never previously been available to them and to them; it meant they had to exploit it for what it was worth before competition challenged them. At the time that Europeans first settled, I think that they were unaware of the long-term effects that their destruction of salt marshes was causing.

Europeans only understood that there was money to make from the destruction of the environment. For them, it was never about stopping and thinking what their actions were causing because during the time, there was little knowledge of the consequences. Now in hindsight, we are aware how their actions have altered the natural environment in a way that can never fully heal. But we only know this because of the knowledge that has been instilled upon us. Now we know how harmful our actions can be to the area around us because studies have been conducted and proven. We are constantly bombarded with facts about global warming and rising sea levels and know that humans have contributed to these ongoing disasters. Back then, people never fully realized how damaging their actions were.

European settlers had the constant pressure of other nations stealing their lands so them, if they didn’t cultivate the land, another nation would. They knew that the only way to secure the wealth of the land was to exploit it and send it back to their motherland to be sold for a profit. Leaving the area intact was out of the question because for them, what was the point, if not to make profit? This lack of knowledge showed how their impact on the environment was more of an “innocent destruction” rather than intent to destroy paired with a lack of concern. Had the Europeans been well educated in the consequences of their actions, perhaps they would have stopped to think of their impact and in some ways tried to lessen the destruction that can never be truly undone to salt marshes.

There has always been the question of whether the Earth is being ruined because of human’s inability to develop the means to take care of nature or their careless and lack of concern towards a healthy environment.  What we do know is that man has not always destroyed the Earth to the level that we see today.  When humans first started to live off of the land, they learned how to exist peacefully with and respect their environment.  Some of these early people include Native Americans.  As people from more developed places, like Europe, began interacting with them, they introduced them to more destructive ways of using nature for their own good.  This is what started the thoughtless of the nature around us.

Unlike Native Americans, European settlers did not have the mindset of taking care of the land around them.  They considered all land that could not be used for planting food as useless.  Once they came to America, they came across an abundance of open land that could, as they thought, be used for whatever they desired.  This also gave them the idea that they could afford to waste however much land they wanted.  Because of this idea, Europeans found ways to “get rid off” the land that they deemed useless.  For example, when the Dutch settled in New York, they decided to drain the salt marshes because there was no way to grow the food that they needed.  Although the settlers needed some land to live off of, for planting food and spices, they felt entitled to all of the land.  This may have been where the problem began.  Europeans were using the land for their survival and there were not enough of them at the time for their disregard towards their environment to make a significant impact on the Earth as a whole. Unintentionally, this set the standards for the world we live in today.

Compared to today, Europeans had less information about what wasting land and nature could do to the planet.  Though their actions were still relatively careless, they did not have the advantage of technology and science to give them a look into what their activities would do to the Earth as a whole.  Since then, we have learned that land is a great resource.  Even if it cannot be used for agriculture, it can contain nutrients, oil, and even precious metals and gems.  Perfect examples of that are swamps and salt marshes.  They cannot serve as planting ground, but the unique nutrients and organisms that live within them can be used for many different purposes. Without these valuable minerals, nature is still important to our environment.  It provides the oxygen we breathe and a balance in the world’s ecosystem.  We have also learned that because of careless and wasteful behavior our environment is at an extreme risk.  We are already facing problems with global warming and shortages in natural resources.  Even with this information, we continue to disrespect the environment.  People still litter and cause excess pollution.  Business still cause harm to bodies of water and waste large amounts of land that could be valuable in many different ways.  Unfortunately, we have not learned from our past.  People continue to destroy nature without thinking about how much of a difference caring for our environment would make.

Imagine the excitement the colonists experienced when they arrived in North America, particularly New York, and were overwhelmed by the acres of land and salt marsh estuaries.  The colonists had cattle, and their cattle needed a place to graze.  First the land surrounding the estuary was used, but eventually that land was no longer fertile and more land was needed.  The colonists may have drained the salt marshes to serve their own purposes, but they did not understand the consequences of their actions.  The colonists had only one main idea in mind, and that was to survive in this New World.  By draining the salt marshes, the colonists had more pasture for their cattle.  The colonists could then continue eating their cattle for food and using the animal skins and bones for clothing, tools, building, and trading.  This was innocent destruction.  There was no science to cure the simple diseases they were dying from, let alone understanding or science that proved that salt marsh destruction has negative effects on the environment ranging from the loss of certain species, an increase in costal flooding, and an increase in mosquito population.

It says in the Scientific American:  “Such lands are not only unproductive of anything which can subserve any important purpose, but they are productive of numerous evils.” The Scientific American has already taken the next step in actively destroying salt marshes.  The magazine states that salt marshes are hotbeds of evil and should therefore cease to exist. This quote is from 1868, more than 200 years after the first colonist step foot in America.  While science was still lagging behind in 1868, society had some understanding of salt marshes if they could attribute evils, whether correct or incorrect, to estuaries.  They might not have known all the positives of salt marshes, but they probably had a better understanding than the colonists.  By this point in history, people are destoying salt marshes because they lack a concern for the environemnt and are selfishly pursuing their own goals.  However, the colonists did not consider the salt marshes to be troublesome, because once again, they had no understanding of science.  Even if their homes were filled with mosquitoes or bad smells, they probably did not realize the cause was salt marshes.  They did not destroy salt marshes maliciously as the Scientific American is advocating.

The colonists were not concerned with the environment, but I do not think their actions were thoughtless.  The colonists were probably aware that they were destroying part of nature, but the colonists made what they considered to be a thoughtful choice.  The salt marsh was not a productive element in their society, so they chose to drain it.  What is interesting though, is that the colonists’ actions might not fit under the category of technology.  When the colonists decided to fill the salt marshes, scientific understanding was certainly lacking, but the colonists did not use fancy technology to drain the estuaries.  They  simply filled them by blocking stream outlets.  Science does not only need to catch up with technology, science needs to stay on track or even ahead of human intervention of any sort, including, actions taken without understanding the consequences in the big picture, actions taken to try to help a situation but might actually hurt, and of course actions that actively and knowingly destroy the environment.

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.