Oh, just to be picky, environmentalists use "wetlands" because it takes in a wider set of environments than the classic swamp. I actually prefer swamp -- great word.
The importance of the switch into "resources" is not that it the nominalization of a previous verb (a forest is a noun), but that it makes it equivalent to something else through the abstracting process. Everything has "resources" as its denominator (human resources, natural resources, spiritual resources). It is homogenization within utilitarian catagories that is so dangerous. IMHO. Another good example is "values". yours, Peter T.