Statement Accompanying Executive Order 11990 Concerning Protection of Wetlands

The Nation's coastal and inland wetlands are vital natural resources of critical importance to the people of this country. Wetlands are areas of great natural productivity, hydrological utility, and environmental diversity, providing natural flood control, improved water quality, recharge of aquifers, flow stabilization of streams and rivers, and habitat for fish and wildlife resources. Wetlands contribute to the production of agricultural products and timber, and provide recreational, scientific, and aesthetic resources of national interest.

The unwise use and development of wetlands will destroy many of their special qualities and important natural functions. Recent estimates indicate that the United States has already lost over 40 percent of our 120 million acres of wetlands inventoried in the 1950's. This piecemeal alteration and destruction of wetlands through draining, dredging, filling, and other means has had an adverse cumulative impact on our natural resources and on the quality of human life.

The problem of loss of wetlands arises mainly from unwise land use practices. The Federal Government can be responsible for or can influence these practices in the construction of projects, in the management of its own properties, and in the provisions of financial or technical assistance.

In order to avoid to the extent possible the long and short term adverse impacts associated with the destruction or modification of wetlands and to avoid direct or indirect support of new construction in wetlands wherever there is a practicable alternative, I have issued an Executive order on the protection of wetlands.