This paper is going to focus on the current environmental state of the Florida Everglades. It will look into how humans have impacted and effected the Everglades, from pollutants to drainage to invasive species. I’ll also discuss how we are now trying to remedy what has happened and preserve and restore them to prevent further damage, and if conservationists are having any kind of success or not. The Everglades are a 734 square mile ecosystem at the southern tip of Florida, stretching up to nearly the city of Orlando. It is the largest remaining subtropical ecosystem in the United States, despite its dwindling condition, and it is made up of winding lakes, rivers, and wetlands. The Everglades are a truly unique environment, hosting a wide …show more content…
(“Everglades”, 2015). To assist with conversation, the Everglades have been divided by the government into two regions with two purposes. The northern area is reserved for agriculture, primarily sugarcane, and the lower portion has been turned into a historical national park (“Why Should I..”, 2013). The parts that are not included in the preservation constantly face battles against development and even more destruction; thousands of miles of the Everglades are not included in or protected by it’s natural park status. Only 22 of the 56 endangered species are protected in the national parks (Sart, 2015). …show more content…
But it doesn’t just serve as an entertainment purpose for humans, and provides inhabitants of the state with functional services. The Everglades is the primary source of water for an estimated seven million Americans, which is about one third of Florida’s population. It also helps support their economy, through tourism, agriculture, and outdoor activities, and to lose it could cause potential devastation for the people who live in the region (Graham, 2013). So, even for people who aren’t interested in preserving wildlife, it is almost undeniable that restoring the Everglades is important to humans too. In 2013, a canal project was finally successful in beginning to return water to the Florida bay, and has already started to save the wildlife and help preserve the fishing industry there (“Florida Everglades…”, 2015) The project to restore and protect this environment is going to be slow going as corporations and invasive species get in the way of progress, but we are shakily moving forward with
One hundred years ago the Everglades covered close to 4 million acres between Lake Okeechobee and the Gulf of Mexico. Billions of gallons of water flowed into the Everglades. The population of the East coast of Florida was 23,000. This was partially due to a lack of suitable land for housing because of periodic flooding and the threat of hurricanes. When Florida was first becoming settled there were many attempts by settlers to make the area more hospitable. Most of these attempts failed. It was after two devastating hurricanes (1926 and 1928) that the Federal government had the US Army Corps of Engineers create a system of canals, levies, and dikes to further development of that area. They diverted much of the normal southward flow of water eastward. This allowed 1.3 million acres to be developed. It also left 2 million acres for the Everglades National Park and water conservation areas. 1 million acres was left for agricultural use (Everglades Agricultural
The everglades is a portion of a large watershed that runs in the locale of Orlando. The restoration of the everglades has been an ongoing program to remedy the damage done on the environment during the 20th century in southern Florida. It is the most comprehensive and costly attempt to repair environment in history. The degradation of the everglades watershed became an issue in the US in 1770s after the construction of a jetport in the big cypress swamp was proposed. The studies that followed showed that the port would destroy the ecosystem in everglades national park and south Florida (Ogden 803). After a long time of destructive practices, the federal and state agencies have been looking for ways to create an equilibrium of the ecosystem
In the 1980s the Burmese python was transported the United States as an exotic pet from Southeast Asia, but soon after owners began releasing the natural predator into Florida’s Everglades. The population of the python in the Everglades was estimated to be 5,000 – 180,000 in 2009 by South Florida Water Management
If the everglades were dried out 7 million people wouldn’t have water. " One out of every three Floridians (7 million people) rely on the Everglades for their water supply" ( The everglades: Quick Facts). Another reason the everglades is very important is because it blocks most of hurricanes and storms coming. In Louisiana since the wetlands are drying hurricane Katrina hit and killed 1,800 people when it could have been a lot less if the
First and foremost, a main reason why the water supply to the everglades is having a bad effect, is because of all of the past draining. As stated in source 1 (The Florida Everglades) it says “From 1905-1910 , the settlers coverted the land… the Everglades were nearly drained entirely.” This shows that these new settlers wanted to get rid of the Everglades completely. As a result to their actions the Florida lost 50% of the wildlife’s population and diversity. This also included the subtropical wilderness of the Everglades. Which contained grassy marshes, hardwood hammocks, and mangrove forests. The draining of the Everglades was only one of the reasons why that the water supply on the park is bad.
As an invasive species, the Burmese python has an immense impact on the native populations of the Everglades. In the last 20 years, observations of mammals in the Everglades have declined by 95% while the number of non-native Burmese pythons in the park has significantly increased (Sovie et al. 2016). Data from game cameras used in a study by Willson support this observation, showing the spatial pattern of mammal abundance being inversely correlated with spatial expansion of Burmese pythons in the Everglades (Willson 2017).
Growing up I was fortunate to live five miles from the main entrance to the largest subtropical, sawgrass prairie in North America, Everglades National Park. For years, the Everglades revealed its natural treasures as my family and I enjoyed hours of canoeing, hiking, fishing, and bird watching within the park. I had the privilege to attend an elementary school that established a partnership with the Everglades Environmental Center. In fact, in 4th grade I was one of twenty-five students selected to go camping five nights at the Loop Road Interpretive Center, forty miles deep in the glades. My camping experience provided an invaluable lesson about always being honest and the importance of obeying the national park regulations.
Since the 1960’s and 1970’s, the public consensus for environmental concerns like in the Florida Everglades “has faded somewhat as a political issue” (Babbitt, 2007; p 44-45). However, it wasn't until 2000, the Clinton Administration signed the Everglades Restoration legislation into law. (Babbitt, 2007), (Dedekorkut, 2003). And once again political attention had been focused on the preservation of ecosystem resources concerning the Florida Everglades. Along with its polarized atmosphere, scholars have long debated the role partisan politics plays in the water resource policy for the South Florida, Everglades.
Due to constantly changing water levels, ecosystems like the Everglades can be very unpredictable places. Since the 1800s, people have tried to control the Everglades to prevent flooding (Blake). Large canals were built to send the water into the ocean and away from the Everglades. The land along the canals dried up and became more
To begin, the history of the Everglades had many problems with the water supply. There used to be Indian tribes that lived near the Everglades and the Everglades was not affected. When the settlers from outside of Florida arrived, that changed. They wanted to drain the Everglades and they did. According to Tobey Haskell, “The streams were dredged, and the Everglades was nearly drained entirely.” The draining of the Everglades meant affected and less water supply and that meant less wildlife. The water supply was affected so much that 50% of the Everglades no longer exists.
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
Are the Everglades forever? Will the Everglades always look the same? I think that the Everglades will not look the same in the future because humans might want to get rid of it and built something instead in the area. Like what the passage states the behavior of destruction from humans, humans will probably want to destroy the Everglades thinking they are will make it better. But at the same time some people have in mind to leave the Everglades the same so that animals just have freedom to walk around with a lot of space. I would understand if they would leave the Everglades the same or change it.
Orlando Florida is known worldwide for its entertainment facilities, notably Walt Disney World, Universal Theme Park and other attractions. This paper reports on Orlando's natural environment and ecology, which doesn't get the attention and publicity that the theme parks do, but in the end these natural world places are more vital to the well being of the humans and wildlife in that area of Central Florida.
Florida needs to build up an arrangement to deliver its defenselessness to a dangerous atmospheric devation, as 27 different states have officially done. One assignment is to recognize the best dangers and, where conceivable, add to the ability to adjust to them with negligible interruption and expense. A second errand is to diminish discharges of an Earth-wide temperature boost poisons from force plants, autos, and other real sources. Much of the time, sound judgment arrangements exist - utilizing vitality all the more productively and tidying up influence plants - that likewise spare cash or enhance nearby air quality. Comparative activities are additionally required at the national level since Florida can't take care of such abroad issue alone. The genuine threat is that deferring capable activity would make it past the point of no return or a great deal all the more exorbitant to balance out the atmosphere before the century's
Taking over with no natural predator, the Burmese Python. These very large pythons have been effecting our Everglades drastically. Once native to the swampy marshes of Southeast Asia, these snakes are now migrating over to Florida. Being so large and having no natural predator, they have really made a strong change in our Florida wildlife. These dangerous pythons have altered the population of animals in the Everglades by so much that people are beginning to worry about what will happen next. The snakes didn’t get there on their own, but now we don’t have any way of stopping them.