The Everglades in Florida is a vast network of swamps, hammocks, prairies, forests, and pools that is home to a diverse range of plants and animals. The area has undergone extensive restoration efforts to repair man-made damage, and preserving it could mitigate flooding and reduce storm damage in Florida.
The Everglades is a vast network of swamps that cover the southern tip of Florida from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico. The US government has set aside 2,354 square miles (6,097 square kilometers) as a national park, and the site as a whole has undergone extensive restoration efforts in an effort to repair the man-made damage. Florida visitors often make time to visit this unique ecosystem, and numerous tour companies offer tours and other visitor-oriented programs.
While the Everglades is often described as a subtropical swamp, they are quite different. In addition to the classic swamp, the region also includes areas of raised land known as hammocks, expanses of grassy prairies, pine and cypress forests, and swamp areas, where the standing water is deep enough to form pools. This diverse area is also very interconnected, and what happens in one region can have a profound impact on another.
This ecoregion is home to a wide variety of plants and animals, including the Florida panther, osprey, alligators, egrets, herons, crocodiles, sawgrass, manatees, snapping turtles, palms, oaks, and palmettos. Water is critical to the health of the Everglades, with the area serving as a drainage basin for the state of Florida and harvesting water from storms and hurricanes commonly seen in the region.
Native Americans have lived in and around the Everglades for centuries. As Europeans began settling the region, however, they began clearing and draining large swampy areas, creating large breaks in this extensive wetland network. As a result, Florida has become more prone to flooding, because the flood control aspect of the Everglades has been disrupted, and the region’s biological diversity has also declined, since many animals have found themselves homeless.
In the 1970s, conservation started to be a major issue around the world and the Everglades became a cause celebrity. Organizations from around the world lobbied to restore the region, and the US government began allocating funds to restore Everglades National Park, which had been in existence since 1934, along with the surrounding area. This ecoregion is still recovering and is still under threat from agricultural, commercial and residential development in Florida.
Preserving the Everglades isn’t just about preserving an aesthetically pleasing area. By restoring these wetlands, the government could mitigate flooding in Florida and reduce storm damage by providing a buffer zone. Biodiversity is also considered ecologically valuable, especially since some of the native wetland animals are found nowhere else in the world.
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