Wetland Protection Policy and the Implementation Challenges in Conservation Practice: A Mississippi Governance Case Study

Wetlands provide flood storage, water-quality regulation, habitat, shoreline protection, and climate resilience, yet long-term wetland loss continues despite extensive federal and state laws. This paper examines persistence as an environmental governance problem rather than as a purely doctrinal legal question. Using Mississippi as a state-level case study, the study applies a qualitative environmental governance approach to legal, policy, agency, and public-permitting documents. The analysis focuses on jurisdiction, institutional fragmentation, permitting, enforcement capacity, monitoring and participation, and the integration of restoration with regulatory practice. The findings show that Mississippi has a substantial formal framework for wetland protection, but the framework remains spatially uneven: state authority is most visible in the coastal zone, while many inland wetlands depend more heavily on federal jurisdiction, interagency coordination, and administrative follow-through. The study argues that legal accumulation has not produced consistent conservation outcomes because fragmented authority, uneven enforcement, limited monitoring, and land-use pressure weaken implementation. To improve wetland protection, Mississippi should clarify post-Sackett inland coverage, strengthen interagency coordination, improve permit transparency and post-permit compliance tracking, invest in geospatial monitoring, and align restoration with regulation and land-use planning.