The World of the Salt Marsh is a wide-ranging
exploration of the southeastern coast-its natural history, its
people and their way of life, and the historic and ongoing threats
to its ecological survival.
Focusing on areas from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape
Canaveral, Florida, Charles Seabrook examines the ecological
importance of the salt marsh, calling it "a biological factory
without equal." Twice-daily tides carry in a supply of nutrients
that nourish vast meadows of spartina (Spartina
alterniflora)-a crucial habitat for creatures ranging from
tiny marine invertebrates to wading birds. The meadows provide
vital nurseries for 80 percent of the seafood species, including
oysters, crabs, shrimp, and a variety of finfish, and they are
invaluable for storm protection, erosion prevention, and pollution
filtration.
Seabrook is also concerned with the plight of the people who make
their living from the coast's bounty and who carry on its unique
culture. Among them are Charlie Phillips, a fishmonger whose
livelihood is threatened by development in McIntosh County,
Georgia, and Vera Manigault of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a
basket maker of Gullah-Geechee descent, who says that the
sweetgrass needed to make her culturally significant wares is
becoming scarcer.
For all of the biodiversity and cultural history of the salt
marshes, many still view them as vast wastelands to be drained,
diked, or "improved" for development into highways and
subdivisions. If people can better understand and appreciate these
ecosystems, Seabrook contends, they are more likely to join the
growing chorus of scientists, conservationists, fishermen, and
coastal visitors and residents calling for protection of these
truly amazing places.