The Florida Everglades Essays -- Ecology of Everglades

Introduction Maintaining ecological diversity is necessary for the survival of a biological community. In the United States, American citizens are on the verge of irrevocably damaging one of the country's most unique and diverse treasures - the Florida Everglades. This national park is now the only remaining patch of a river that used to span 120 miles from Lake Okeechobee to the Florida Bay. Dikes and levees created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the late 1940's drained this river to reduce flooding and increase useable water for the development of the region. This major diversion of water lead to a trickle down effect causing the continual decline of the environmental state of the Everglades. Since then, debates over the Everglades' future have silently raged on for years about how, why, and when the restoration will begin. This ongoing, but virtually unproductive effort has cost taxpayers a great deal without any apparent benefits. Recently, this debate has been amplified by the voices of t he sugar industry in Florida, which was attacked for its major contribution to pollution of the Everglades. Now debates rage on with a new effort called the Restudy. Backed by the Army Corps of Engineers, this effort would change the flow of the Everglades, potentially restoring it into the viable community of life that it used to be. The question now is, will this latest attempt to restore the Everglades ever be realized (thus ending the cyclic Everglades debate) or will it simply add up to one more notch on the bedpost of inadequate and failed attempts to save this national treasure. The world is watching to see how the United States will handle this unprecedented cleanup. The Everglades Defined "Here are no lofty peaks seeking ... ...Science News, 155, 252-254. Lauber, P. (1973). Everglades Country. New York: The Viking Press. Levin, T. (1998, June/July). Listening to wildlife in the Everglades. National Wildlife, 36, 20- 31. McCally, D. (1999). The Everglades: An Environmental History. Gainsville: University Press of Florida. Myers, V. (1994, December). The Everglades: Researchers take a new approach to an old problem. Sea Frontiers, 40, 15-16. Regaldo, Nanciann. Planning for South Florida's future: The Central and Southern Florida Project. Online. National Park Service Homepage. Internet. 21 September 1999. Available: www.nps.gov Reichhardt, T. (1999, February). Everglades plan flawed, claim ecologists. Nature, 397, 462. Richey, W. (1997, August). Saving Everglades: Who should pay? Christian Science Monitor, 89, 3. Wasserman, H. (1996, December). Burnt Sugar. Nation, 263, 6.