Jesuit Bend, La. — Louisiana loses at least 25 square miles of coastal wetlands each year—a grievous destruction of ecologically crucial habitat and of natural buffers against catastrophic storm flooding. But a bold new project ought to teach environmentalists that the profit motive can work more efficiently to protect wetlands than punitive regulations and burdensome bureaucracies. In just six weeks this fall, a private company rebuilt about a square half-mile of wetlands in one of the most ecologically useful spots in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish. What makes the project novel is that the company, Restoration Systems from Raleigh, N.C., undertook the project on spec as an investment, with the intention of selling wetlands “mitigation credits” to make a profit. Businesses whose activities cause marsh destruction elsewhere will, under a federally encouraged barter system, buy those credits to offset the damage they inflict…..
