They don’t take just any piece of property for the program. My family is still working through the approval process which is designed, it seems, to make sure that the land they are putting federal dollars into will actually benefit the environment after it’s reconverted to wetlands.

The land that farmers like to offer for this program is marginal, but the feds can be picky about what they accept.

I think that’s the strategy the Feds are employing with this program my family’s looking into. They’re not paying enough to get truly profitable farmers to consider re-converting.

It’s those farmers on the ragged edge of profitability who would find this program attractive.

This might work for other things too, like mountain-top removal mining.  Charging stiff siltation taxes might make it uneconomical.

My extended family is actually looking into this program for some recently purchased land. We have no interest in commercial farming, we bought it for hunting, so it’s no sweat for us to commit to not farming the land (and having the government come out and dig ponds make other changes that would make it better for hunting anyway).

We believe that we can get the government to fund a sizeable portion of the note.

As a bit of an environmentalist myself, I also wonder if those Greens who welcome this report realise that their “Green Dream” of a static “sustainable” society is likely to result in a zero-sum system – a planet of peasants – that is the surest recipe for environmental catastrophe imaginable.

Of course, it would never really go that far. Even if the zero-growthers could achieve their dream in the West, the developing world is going to keep growing and using resources as driven by the market. Meanwhile, continued growth in the West stands the greatest chance of bringing us to cleaner and more efficient use of resources.

Engineer Poet wrote:

It’s the money that’s has to be paid when those things are gone: cutting down mangrove swamp eliminates spawning grounds for sea life, collapses valuable fishery; draining swamp cuts wildlife, increases flooding downstream causing economic losses and lowering property values, and allows excess nutrients and pollutants to flow into water requiring more and more expensive treatment before it is usable.

Right. Declaring wetlands to have a certain economic value provides a rationale for protecting them and preventing any more from being turned to farms. So we can prevent further loss, but we can’t do anything with this valuation to reverse past harm unless we implement some massive buy-out and follow it up with converting farms back to wetlands.

I was just trying to draw attention to that missing step.

I’m just not clear who’s going to be paying that money.

It’s the money that’s has to be paid when those things are gone:  cutting down mangrove swamp eliminates spawning grounds for sea life, collapses valuable fishery; draining swamp cuts wildlife, increases flooding downstream causing economic losses and lowering property values, and allows excess nutrients and pollutants to flow into water requiring more and more expensive treatment before it is usable.

For an example of the economic value of a standing forest, look at the people in the Phillipines who were made homeless or killed when lack of trees caused hillsides to come down on them during heavy rains.  Or ponder what a salmon run is worth in terms of nutrients brought from the ocean back up onto the continent, for free.

For an example of the cost of natural “services” destroyed, it’s hard to get more explicit than this.

Just as polluting air and water can be controlled by establishing an artificial market by fines or tradeable emission rights, if a locality in a particular state is providing x amount of benefit, the best way to secure this could be either be states, or some sort of environmentalist subsciption fund, purchasing and maintaining on the lines of National Parks. Or paying the property owner a compensating rent for keeping it in a desired condition.

Whether the experts judgement of relative values is accurate is another matter. But such payments, like pollution fines, bans and charges, are inevitably based on some sort of arbitrary standard, as far as I can see.

Not having read the report, I wonder if they point how much environmental damage is produced by the combination of poverty and unaccountable government? Because either would likely make a system of compensation payments or regulations inoperative.

As a bit of an environmentalist myself, I also wonder if those Greens who welcome this report realise that their “Green Dream” of a static “sustainable” society is likely to result in a zero-sum system – a planet of peasants – that is the surest recipe for environmental catastrophe imaginable.