focuses only on the national perspective for the wetlands allocation issue often 

 overlooks the critical nonpecuniary factors underlying wetland drainage in the 

 northern Great Plains of the U.S. Nonpecuniary returns to drainage investment 

 include weed and insect control from eradication of one of the breeding places 

 of these pests. Attitudinal factors (e.g., a good farm is a tidy farm, and a 

 tidy farm has no wetlands) and the collective ethic and aesthetic values of the 

 farmers of the region play an important role in the on-farm conversion of prairie 

 potholes. 



90. Leitch, J. A., and B.L. Ekstrom. 1989. Wetland economics and assessment. 

 Garland Publishing, Inc., New York. 194 pp. 



This is an up-to-date annotated bibliography of wetlands valuation, 

 assessment, regulatory, and management literature. There are 561 references, 

 with a decided emphasis on post-1974 literature. There are five sections to the 

 bibliography proper, a useful introduction, and author and subject indexes in 

 this compact book. The various sections deal with general topics, assessment, 

 economic valuation, management, regulations (policies and programs), and social 

 values. The economic valuation section is the heart of the book, with 204 

 citations. The major strengths of the book are the quality of the writing and 

 analysis in the introduction and the large number of literature citations. The 

 introduction is refreshingly forthright and opinionated; Leitch and Eckstrom 

 argue, correctly I believe, that incorrect economic analysis will only impede 

 the wetlands preservationist effort, regardless of the magnitude of the alleged 

 preservation values. 



However, the authors could have been a bit more candid by mentioning 

 Gosselink, Odum, and Pope ([9]) (or Pope and Gosselink [8] as well as numerous 

 others) and the ecosystem life support valuation methodology by name. Also, 

 there is a serious problem with dismissing these proconservationist valuations 

 papers as inept economics research. Some of the prodevelopment arguments often 

 made in the natural resource allocation policy arena are also inept as pieces 

 of economic analysis, yet highly persuasive as political rhetoric. 



Natural resource economists will have to devise some means of appreciating 

 the multi-faceted needs served by these interdisciplinary rhetorical articles 

 while at the same time drawing attention to the fact the slipshod economic 

 analysis is always insipid for all those who have sufficient training to readily 

 spot the analytic inadequacies. The discussions are terse; brevity is a virtue, 

 particularly in a bibliography published as a journal article, but many of the 

 discussions given here are too brief for a book-length bibliography. It would 

 be very helpful to know which works Leitch and Eckstrom deem to be seminal. This 

 could have been readily accomplished by varying the length and detail of the 

 discussions. Arguably, Hammack and Brown's book (see [10]) on migratory 

 waterfowl and prairie potholes is the best and most important piece of economic 

 analysis on wetlands. Leitch and Eckstrom cite this work, but provide no 

 discussion. The heavy emphasis on brevity does not detract from the overall 

 usefulness of this important work, but it does leave the reader with the 

 impression that the authors are more emotionally detached from the subject than 

 is the case. 



67 



irus GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFF.CE 19e9-Jacket 676-653/5126 Region 8 



