Regardless of the reasoning behind regulations, there are great reasons for protecting riparian corridors and their buffers, and the links are not direct enough for us to suss out, at least the way we're trying to here in this forum. The National Geographic link about the Wolf Wars nails it: there are larger processes in play than the ones we think we directly manage, and we all share responsibility to help restore balance in a time of great imbalance by allowing those processes to reestablish themselves without us. Permaculture is biomimicry at base, but it is highly artificial relative to nature doing whatever it does. Permaculture is fabulous but there are things best left to the wild, and riparian corridors give a high value return for little "sacrifice." The book that sheds the most light on this, and that will restore the humilty that turns one from a so-called landowner to an actual (biocentric) steward is Rewilding North America, by Dave Forman. It provides a window onto the geological-time-scale picture that Conservation Biology is helping us see, and provides clear guidance on where we can help the return of the wild begin helping us. I think it deserves to be a book that is used to frame and contextualize what is done under the banner of Permaculture.
