Muddy wetland rules and will couch potatoes decide the future of our land?

Two interesting environmental stories today. At first glance they might not seem too connected aside from the broad environment topic, but look closer. The first and big one describes the split decision of our Supreme Court over our Federal Wetlands Regulations. The vote was split pretty much the way the country is split over property rights and environmental regulation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13442439/
The second describes the results of a nature Conservancy funded study, which shows that per capita visits to National Parks have been declining since 1987. The study shows that the increase in use of electronic media ie, internet, video games, movie rentals, etc. was most responsible for this decrease, which makes good sense if you consider the year of the turnaround.
http://www.nature.org/success/art18259.html
So what do these have in common? They both reflect the growing disconnect between people and their environment. One story does this with obvious evidence, while the other portends the future ramifications of this disconnect. Justices who do not understand the value that even wetlands remote from a major waterway play in the quality of our water are apt to find them disposable. Perhaps it is not even their fault. Perhaps it is ours for not updating such an important law as that regulating the quality of our water now and for future generations. W e should have, and should still, urge our lawmakers to change the language in the law that ties wetlands to such an archaic notion as necessitating a direct connection to a "navigable waterway". Underground movements of water are far too poorly mapped to say that a wetland with no obvious connection to a navigable waterway has no effect on water quality.
Once again, we only get what we hold our lawmakers to, and our children will find it difficult to value what we don't teach them is valuable.

What about the uplands?

Okay, so we have some Federal and State laws to protect wetlands and waterways. So what about the uplands? Should we accept the photo on the right as the normal situation, where if we're lucky narrow corridors along some waterways are left with some vegetation while everything else is completely stripped and bulldozed? We need to live, work, and shop somewhere, but we should be able to do it while respecting the land. Rape and scrape, mass grade developments should be outlawed, unless absolutely necessary. County governments should be required to come up with well considered land use plans that consider the lay of the land, natural resources, and future requirements, forward thinking basically. SOmething that I think would be useful would be to place values on the type of existing habitat and tax accordingly for a developer who wants to develop a piece of property. For example, a developer who wants to redevelop an urban area might get a tax credit, one who wants to build on an old fallow agricultural field might have no tax, while one who wants to develop a piece of land with old hardwood forest might have to pay a per acre fee. Basically, who stand to profit from destructive behavior should be made to consider what they are taking from our ecology and from future generations.