Conservation Threatened

"A federal program that has preserved more than 30,000 acres of Wisconsin wetlands would be eliminated in President Bush's proposed 2002 budget.Farmers, duck hunters and environmentalists said they are stunned at the decision to end the Wetlands Reserve Program, though they are hopeful that bipartisan efforts in Congress will save the program.Since its inception in 1992, more than 900,000 acres of marginal farmland have been restored to wetlands status in the United States, and the conservation initiative is so popular it is continually oversubscribed."