Productivity rhetoric reframed wetlands as already-developed rather than wasted

Evidence

To many people, however, the productivity of the coastal marsh was most important as a kind of metaphor. The new ecological understanding directly countered the oldest image of wetlands – the swamp as wasteland. In a time when Americans were obsessed with the growth of gross national product, the very word “productivity” also conveyed a powerful message. The marsh was efficient, amazingly productive, abundant – in other words, the marsh was a miniature of the United States. It already was a highly evolved community, and so it did not need to be “developed.” Instead, the marsh should be admired and applauded. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 653

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Wetlands became valued as wilderness precisely because they resisted development. — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside:…, 647