7749 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Life in Jeopardy on Private Property 59 12. The Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere states that the species of fauna and flora listed in its annex "shall be protected as completely as possible and their hunting, killing, capturing, or taking, shall be allowed only with the permission of the appropriate government authorities in the country," presumably without regard to whether they are taken on public or private land (56 Stat. 1354, Article VIII, 1366). The United States has not named any plants to the list, though other nations have. The convention has largely been ignored, espe- cially in domestic law. 13. The Supreme Court of Wisconsin found that compensation was not required when a county ordinance prevented landowners from filling a wetland that was a critical natural feature. "We have a restriction on the use of a citizen's property, not to secure a benefit for the public, but to prevent a harm from the change in the natural character of the citizen's property.... Destroying the natural char- acter of aswamp or a wetland so as to make that location available for human habitation [degrades] the ecological creation [and] the new use, although of a more economical value to the owner, causes a harm to the general public.... The shoreland zoning ordinance preserves nature, the environment, and natural resources as they were created and to which the people have a present right." The court recognized. that the public had only recently realized- the values in wetlands (Just v. Marinette County, 1972, 56 Wis. 2d 7, p. 18, 201 N.W. 2d 761, p. 768). Also, nothing for which the land- owners had labored was taken; their loss was of possibilities of development traded against public loss. The ordinance reduced the market value of the land, but that market value did not result from labors of the owners. In a New Hampshire decision, the court found that "controlling and restricting the filling of wetlands is clearly within the police power of the State.... If the action of the State is a valid exercise of the police power proscribing activities that could harm the public, then there is no taking under the eminent domain clause." The regulation "did not deny to plaintiffs the current uses of their '~ marshland but did prevent a major change in the marshland's essential natural character, a change which plaintiffs, for specula- tive .profit, sought for a purpose unsuited to its natural state and injurious to the rights of others.... The plaintiffs' four acres were part of a valuable ecological asset of the seacoast area and ...the proposed fill would do irreparable damage to an already danger- . ously diminished and irreplaceable natural asset.... The proposed fill would be bad for the marsh and for mankind" (Sibson v. State o f I1Tew Hampshire, 1975, 115 N.H. 124, pp. 124-126 336 A2d 239).