No net loss (wetlands)
"No net loss" is the United States government's overall policy goal regarding wetlands preservation. The goal of the policy is to balance wetland loss due to economic development with wetlands reclamation, mitigation, and restorations efforts, so that the total acreage of wetlands in the country does not decrease, but remains constant or increases. To achieve the objective of no net loss, the federal government utilizes several different environmental policy tools which legally protect wetlands, provide rules and regulations for citizens and corporations interacting with wetlands, and incentives for the preservation and conservation of wetlands. Given the public benefits provided by wetland ecosystem services, such as flood control, nutrient farming, habitat, water filtration, and recreational area, the estimations that over half the acreage of wetlands in the United States has been lost within the last three centuries is of great concern to local, state, and federal agencies as well as the public interest they serve.
Since the 18th century, wetland area has decreased from nearly 220 million acres (890,000 km2) in the lower 48 states to 107.7 million acres (436,000 km2) in 2004. Since the 1950s, over fifty percent of this loss has come from wetlands being transitioned to agricultural lands. Other contributing factors to wetlands loss include but are not limited to development and forestry.
No net loss as a goal for wetland's policy was recommended in 1987 at the National Wetlands Policy Forum and was first adopted by President George H.W. Bush administration in 1989. The policy, which represented compromise between development and conservation, was grounded on the needs to protect the wetlands by creating and restoring the wetlands. The United States is not the only nation interested in the conservation of wetlands: international cooperation exists in the form of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
...
Wikipedia