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Florida Everglades
built 177 days ago
The Florida Everglades, located in southern Florida, is one of the largest wetlands in the world. Several hundred years ago, this wetlands was a major part of a 5,184,000 acre watershed that covered almost a third of the entire state of Florida. The Everglades consist of a shallow sheet of fresh water that rolls slowly over the lowlands and through billions of blades of sawgrass. As water moves through the Everglades, it causes the sawgrass to ripple like green waves; this is why the Everglades received the nickname "River of Grass." Photo: Birds feeding in Savannas wetland, St. Lucie County, FL. Photo courtesy of South Florida Water Management District.
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The Florida Everglades is one of the world’s most unusual ecosystems. Once stretching from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay, it included forested uplands, large areas of sawgrass marsh (the basis for the famous description of the Everglades as “ a river of grass”), tree islands, and the Bay’s estuary. Since the turn of the century, flood control and irrigation projects, urban development, and agricultural practices have reduced the Everglades’ size and affected its water quality and hydrology.
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The Florida Everglades were first inhabited more than 11,000 years ago by two groups of indigenous people, the Tequestas and the Calusas. Since then, the region has seen continuous change with the invasion of Spanish settlers, colonization by the British and the Seminoles through the mid-1800s.
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After the United Nations decided to drop the Florida Everglades like a cheating ex from its list of threatened World Heritage Sites, the U.S. Congress rather gallantly stepped into the breach. Three major Florida water projects that will help restore what writer Michael Grunwald calls "the ecological equivalent of motherhood and apple pie," are now part of a $21 billion national water bill that made it through House and Senate negotiations.
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Until the 1930's the Florida Everglades was virtually undisturbed without human interference. The natural water flow pattern under which the Everglades evolved over 5,000 years ago has not existed now for over 75 years. The implementation of various water control programs and urbanization disrupted the rivers natural flow, draining and redirecting water flows causing considerable negative ramifications to this delicate natural ecosystem. Many battles have been fought by conservationist against developers who view the land as a marsh wasteland and would like nothing better than to drain off the land for commercial development.
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The Florida legislature approved the use of bonding to generate needed revenue for land acquisition related to the Everglades restoration program. The Legislature ... approved a bill limiting citizen standing under Florida's National Environmental Protect Act, which was attached to the Everglades bill. This provision placed substantial limits on which groups qualify to challenge environmentally destructive projects.
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Florida Everglades