These people just utterly fail to recognize that private property is perhaps one the *best* ways to preserve and not destroy.
I happen to live on a marine shoreland that abutts a wetland. I live there. It is *in my own self interest* to make sure that the quality of the marine shoreland is preserved. I live there. That's WHY I live there. I want to preserve it becuase that is what I enjoy about the place.
Somebody in a county office in a cubicle somewhere has *nowhere near* the interest in this place that I have. There is simply no point in having them make rules about how I can improve or change the property, and it's not even like we have competing interests. We don't. I, in fact, have a heck of a lot more interest in this place than some bureaucrat has.