The Vjosa River is the last of its kind. The river and its tributaries flow uninterrupted from their headwaters in the mountains of Greece to Albania where the Vjosa empties into the Adriatic Sea. It is the only major wild river system that exists in Europe today and it has long been imperiled by hydropower projects that would destroy the culture and ecology of the regions the river courses through. Today, over 30 different hydropower projects are proposed on the Vjosa and its tributaries.

A century ago, the Hebard Cypress company razed what was then considered a nuisance swamp in southeast Georgia of its pond cypress. Some 400 million feet of timber was removed in total, and all this after a canal was dredged to drain the swamp altogether. The former effort was abandoned after only 11 miles had been dug. The idea, of course, was to turn this inconvenient swath of wetlands real estate into timber farms and croplands.

Thankfully, it didn’t work out that way.