This map depicts the historic water flow across the Greater Everglades Ecosystem before the Central and Southern Florida Project. Courtesy of US Army Corps of Engineers.

The push for Everglades restoration in the 1970s - or the repair of south Florida’s beleaguered mosaic of wetland habitats - came about in response to the adverse environmental consequences of a previous improvement project: the Central and Southern Florida (CS&F) flood control project. The CS&F project was launched in 1947. A vast armature of infrastructure including 1,000 miles of levees and canals, 15 square miles of interconnected water reservoirs, 150 water control structures and 16 major pumping stations, the CS&F project ushered in an era of unprecedented comprehensive water control in south Florida (2). Designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in response to devastating floodwaters from a powerful 1947 hurricane, the CS&F project enabled widespread agricultural and residential development across the peninsula. While paving the way for South Florida’s rapid modernization, the CS&F project was propelled by the notion that wetlands were worthless and by a vision of progress premised on transforming wetlands into more productive uses through human ingenuity.

This map illustrates how the CS&F project disrupted historic Everglades water flows, and created the current water management system.

Yet, the CS&F project had deleterious environmental effects. Through the CS&F project, the US Army Corps of Engineers completely re-engineered the Everglades from its historic form as a slow-moving, wide river of water into a fusion of nature, technology and intensive human management (3). In the process, the Corps effectively dismantled the elemental characteristics of the Everglades ecosystem: the seasonal pulse of water from Lake Okeechobee and the wetland’s uninterrupted sheetflow (4). Michael Grunwald has chronicled how the CS&F project did an excellent job draining south Florida and delivering water to agricultural and urban development, but drastically disrupted the quantity, quality and timing of historic water flows across the Greater Everglades ecosystem, especially those into Everglades National Park (5).

In the 1970s, the CS&F project’s adverse consequences became painfully apparent in Everglades National Park. The park landscape was starved of so much water that it almost completely dried out, and intense fires raged across its habitats (6). These events sparked public outcry, and a series of Congressionally mandated projects focused on restoring the hydrology of the Everglades watershed, which culminated with the Congressional authorization of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) in 2000 (7).

An Everglades vista. Courtesy of South Florida Water Management District.

Remnants of a logging tram road in the Big Cypress National Preserve. Courtesy of author.

Prairie/Pine Island Mosaic, Big Cypress National Preserve. Courtesy of author.

There is no doubt that the future of the stunning, otherworldly and one-of-kind wetland we call the Everglades – an irreplaceable natural and cultural treasure as well as the source of the majority of south Florida’s drinking water - depends on finding the common ground to build not one but many innovative and inclusive collaborations that constructively bring together multiple voices, knowledge systems and environmental stewardship practices to make the Everglades more resilient in the Anthropocene (14).

Backcountry Camp, Big Cypress National Preserve. Courtesy of author.