Half of the world’s wetlands were lost in the past century. Twenty percent of the world’s freshwater fish are extinct, threatened, or endangered. In addition, dams and canals fragment almost sixty percent of the world’s largest rivers. The United States alone is losing natural land at an alarming rate, with over two million acres of land lost every year to development. According to the United States Geological Survey, Louisiana has lost 1,900 square miles of wetlands in the past seven decades—an area larger than the state of Rhode Island. Draining the wetlands to make way for roads, malls, beach communities, marinas, and condominiums has depleted the shoreline. Louisiana, in fact, loses twenty-five square miles of coast every year.