implies a reduction in certain others. Some of the outputs and activities are 

 substitutes for each other, while others are complements. 



Two earlier bibliographies on this subject have been written, one by Leitch 

 and Scott (1977) and one by Leitch with various collaborators (1981). Moreover, 

 Leitch and Eckstrom (1989) have recently written a book-length annotated 

 bibliography of wetlands literature. The Leitch-Eckstrom work includes sections 

 on wetlands regulation and wetlands management as well as a lengthy section on 

 wetlands economics literature. Their book is the last work cited in this 

 monograph. The other two annotated bibliographies co-authored by Leitch feature 

 wetlands literature on subjects other than economic valuation. Despite the fact 

 that the subject of wetlands literature is so large as to be somewhat unwieldy, 

 these two early reference articles are easy to use because they are divided into 

 a number of parts focusing on specific subjects. 



The current annotated bibliography features an extensive discussion of the 

 research techniques that have been developed by economists to assess a wide range 

 of public amenity values, including wetlands preservation benefits. Also, the 

 current monograph generally discusses important contributions in more detail than 

 do the three antecedent works on this subject. The most important gap in the 

 social science literature on wetlands is the absence of adequate discussion of 

 the failure to translate the social values embodied in the economics literature 

 into effective legislative action to stem the loss of wetlands caused by various 

 developmental pressures. Some scientists seem to believe that the critical step 

 in the development of adequate regulatory and legislative safeguards for halting 

 wetlands loss is the demonstration that per acre dollar values for aggregate 

 wetland benefits are very large (Gosselink et al . 1974). I believe that recent 

 wetland losses are generated primarily by the interrelated problems of public 

 education about wetland resources, legislative inertia, and the absence of multi- 

 agency regulatory activity directed towards wetlands preservation. 



The following bibliographic databases (covering the period from 1976 to 

 the present) were searched for scholarly articles dealing with the economic 

 benefits of wetlands preservations: (1) Agricola, (2) Dissertation Abstracts 

 Online, and (3) Environline. 



