130 The Environmental Debate
DOCUMENT 109: John Teal and Mildred Teal on the
Productivity of the Salt Marsh (1969)Between 1950 and 1980, the population of the coastal regions of the United States increased by more than 30
million people, fueled in part by the baby boom and a tremendous growth in disposable income. In order to
expand the land available for homes and agriculture, local wetlands were often filled in, with the first batch of
landfill frequently consisting of garbage. As a result, not only were the barrier islands modified, but the salt
marshes behind them—the wetlands—began to disappear. Estimates indicate that by the mid-1950s there was a
loss of 25 percent of the coastal wetlands that had existed when Columbus reached America.
The call to protect these wetlands came in 1969, when John and Mildred Teal published Life and Death
of a Salt Marsh. The Teals, who had spent years studying salt marshes, made the public aware that wetlands
are not wastelands, as most Americans had long believed [see Document 19], but rather are some of the most
productive areas in the world, and that much of the fish and other seafood we eat is dependent, directly or
indirectly, on the existence of salt marshes.The owner of a factory on the bank of a
stream—whose property extends to the middle
of the stream—often has difficulty seeing why it
is not his natural right to muddy the waters flow-
ing past his door.
The pollution problem is a consequence of
population. It did not much matter how a lonely
American frontiersman disposed of his waste
.... But as population became denser, the natu-
ral chemical and biological recycling processes
became overloaded, calling for a redefinition of
property rights.
* * *The most important aspect of necessity that
we must now recognize, is the necessity of aban-
doning the commons in breeding. No technical
solution can rescue us from the misery of overpop-
ulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all. At
the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us
are tempted to propagandize for conscience and
responsible parenthood. The temptation must be
resisted, because an appeal to independently act-
ing consciences selects for the disappearance of all
conscience in the long run, and an increase in anxi-
ety in the short.Source: Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,”
Science 162, no. 1243 (December 13, 1968): 88, 89, 92.Estuaries in general and salt marshes in par-
ticular are unusually productive places. None
of the common agriculture, except possibly
rice and sugarcane production, comes close to
producing as much potential animal food as do
the salt marshes. The agricultural crops which
approach this high figure are fertilized and cul-
tivated at great expense. The marsh is fertilized
and cultivated only by the tides.
Marshes are productive for several reasons,
all of which are a result of the meeting of land
and sea. The tides continually mix the waters
and, by their rise and fall, water the plants.
Harmful accumulations of waste products are
diluted and removed. Nutrients are brought in
continuous supply. The plants can put energy
into growth, which in another environment they
might have to use for collecting nutrients. The
meeting of fresh and salt waters tends to trap
nutrients in the regions of such meeting and
this concentration of nutrients promotes plant
growth. The materials coming down the rivers
tend to flocculate and settle out when they reach
the increasingly salty estuarine waters. But the
settled materials are not lost. Spartina roots use
them. The tides continually stir the settled mate-
rial and make the nutrients available for use by
the phytoplankton.