Leaving mosquitoes out of Wetland restoration.

• Position: Your Life - Brief Article

When it comes to restoring nature, some members of the natural world are shunned for good reason. Restoring wetlands has a foreseeable and inevitable downside: the creation of a mosquito habitat. Breeding disease-transmitting mosquitoes is not just an unpleasant side effect of creating wetlands, but a consequence that must be acknowledged when planning wetland restoration projects, states Elizabeth Willott. an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Wetlands do have benefits, she reminds skeptics. They "clean water, help in flood control, provide habitat, and have aesthetic value." Even so, environmental ethics require taking into consideration that after a wetland is restored or created, people's exposure to mosquito-borne diseases may increase. For instance, in just a few years, West Nile virus, first found in the U.S...