Due to the importance of coastal wetlands, efforts have been made to devise effective conservation strategies to halt their destruction and potentially aid in their recovery. One method is through government regulation. By 1984, over half of all the wetlands in the U.S. had been drained or filled for development or agriculture. Congress responded to these alarming figures by passing two critical wetland conservation and restoration programs administered by National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to slow or reverse these trends. These two programs are the Wetland Conservation Provisions which was authorized in the 1985 Farm Bill, and the Wetlands Reserve Program which was later authorized in the 1990 Farm Bill. Enactment of the 1985 Farm Bill dramatically reduced agricultural impacts when compared to pre-1985 wetland impacts. Through these two programs, NRCS works with farmers and ranchers to maintain or increase important wetland benefits, while ensuring their ability to continue to produce food and fiber (Barras). Another strategy is to better communicate the economic benefit of healthy wetlands, in order to incentivize the private sector to take action. Using the latest modeling techniques, researchers from the conservation, engineering, and insurance sectors studied the impact of Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast United States in 2012, when New York and New Jersey were badly hit by storm surges. The study determined that more than $625 million in property damages were prevented during this catastrophe due to coastal wetlands along the Northeast coast. Promoting these advantages of wetlands may result in greater consideration in coastal development and habitat restoration decisions, and may provide greater incentives in the private sector to design their development projects in a sustainable way so as to conserve and restore these natural habitats.
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