A River of Grass

The Everglades, America's largest sub-tropical wilderness, is an extensive flooded grassland stretching 60 miles wide and 300 miles long across half the Florida peninsula.

The Everglades mosaic of expansive sawgrass marshes, cypress domes, mangrove estuaries, and pine rocklands transitions across temperate and subtropical climates, from freshwater shallow bays to brackish coastal waters. White ibis and roseate spoonbills wade in sloughs near nesting alligators. Florida panthers and bobcats hunt deer through tropical hardwood hammocks while crocodiles and West Indian manatees swim slowly through the mangrove estuaries.

Importance to South Florida

Life in South Florida is directly linked to the health of the Everglades, which acts as an extremely efficient water treatment system. Plants filter pollutants out of the slow-moving water, delivering cleaner water to recharge the Biscayne aquifer, Biscayne Bay, Florida Bay, and nearby coral reefs. The Everglades also acts as a buffer, protecting urbanized areas from extensive flooding.

Threats

The Everglades is also America’s most endangered ecosystem. Water, the heart of the Everglades, once flowed south from Central Florida’s Chain of Lakes through the Kissimmee River Valley to Lake Okeechobee, overflowing Lake Okeechobee during the wet season and moving in a broad shallow river south to Florida Bay. The Everglades' diverse habitats depended on large quantities of water being filtered through the system.

Today, however, much of that water is pumped directly to the coast through a system of canals, levees, pump stations, and water storage areas built starting in the 1950s to protect agricultural and urban areas from the extremes of South Florida's wet and dry seasons. The resulting loss of freshwater and increased pollution run-off from agricultural and urban areas has severely threatened the Everglades ecosystem.

Water loss in not the only threat. Populations of wading birds have dropped by 90% since overhunting at the turn of the century and sixty animal species are threatened or endangered. Non-native plants such as melaleuca, Australian pine, and Brazilian pepper have invaded disturbed areas, creating monocultures where native plants can’t live. At the same time, development continues to encroach into the Everglades, reducing habitat for native species and water storage areas to prevent flooding.

Restoration of the Everglades

In response to Everglades degradation and urban water supply problems, the Army Corps of Engineers developed the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) to increase the flow of freshwater into the Everglades. It is the largest ecological restoration effort in the U.S., perhaps the world, and will take more than 20 years to complete.

Environmental Education

CITIZENS works to educate students and teachers about the importance of the Everglades and its connection to life in South Florida through teacher trainings, curriculum development, educational sessions, and field study trips for students.