Incessant Expressions

Yesterday, it was announced that the state of Florida was buying back a huge portion of the Everglades, the most ecologically diverse wetlands in North America. All I can say is thank you. The state is buying roughly 300 square miles back from US Sugar, the nation’s largest cane sugar company. The plan roughly comes out to the state buying the entire company for a hair under two billion dollars and giving them 6 years to pull up the stakes and move out. This will leave roughly another 400 square miles still in use for sugar cane production. I’ll miss my sugar in 6 years but I think I can make due with agave nectar.

Boom or Bust?

It’s both actually. We Floridians are regaining our beloved wetlands while everyone else loses out on sugar. Too bad, suckers. The current CEO of US Sugar states he’s “not a little bit saddened” at the prospect of being bought out for $1.75 billion dollars. Who would be sad? He’s the CEO and will be making some serious coin off this deal, along with the compensation and severance packages all of the employees will be receiving. It’s a loss to the sugar industry for sure but it’s truly a gain for our wildlife. While the constant drought, brush fires, and extreme farming are killing the Everglades, so are a lot of other things. The farming reroutes the water unnaturally and keeps certain areas parched for weeks or months at a time during the dry season. Brush fires due to drought and heat are an expected way of life in the wetlands but they’re no doubt helped by farming. The ecology itself is direly threatened by invasive non-native species such as Melaleuca trees, Latin and Central American birds, non-native African snakes and the list goes on.

When I was going to school for my first Bachelor’s Degree, the teacher that probably impressed upon the most was Dr. Allen Dray, a lead researcher on using native and non-native species to fight melaleuca plant invasion. Sure, he taught me economics and statistics and project management but nothing shone through more than his own love for his job: harvesting bugs to kill trees. He loves the Everglades and has been working there for years trying to combat the extremely water-hungry trees. I can only imagine that Florida’s new initiative to preserve and restore the state’s most amazing asset has him in either tears or jumping for joy, I can see him doing both. This new deal gives him and the rest of the Invasive Plant Research Laboratory researchers a much bigger sandbox in which to play; besides, their research lab is something to behold in and of itself, its windows can withstand Category 4 force hurricane winds and not flinch.

New conservation efforts will be readily made

Since the Everglades is the state’s largest national park amassing literally one-fourth of the entire state, the restoration efforts to begin in 6 years will undoubtedly bring new life to local conversation efforts. Our own little slice of the Everglades just a few miles away is always up for grabs in conservation efforts, some successful some not. This buy back will serve as a platform for shrinking other sugar production in the area, I’m sure, albeit slowly. I hope that wildlife tours will pick back up as they’ve been trailing off in the last few years. Why aren’t parents teaching their kids about the awesomeness of the outdoors and how cool animals are? Every time we go to Lion Country Safari, it’s amazing and we’ve seen all the animals before. Our recent visit to Morikami Japanese Gardens was just amazing even though we stomped a third of a mile in a torrential downpour. Sugar Sands Park is a great place to go and relax on a bike ride and it’s just a 5 minute bike ride from us. There’s all this awesome ecology around us and kids around here probably can’t stomach camping out in the woods let alone having some fun in a giant swamp right their backyards. But given this buy back, I believe that county school systems will try to reintroduce many students to the cool stuff they can find right outside their house. When I lived in Georgia, a similar effort was made by the state to raise awareness of the Okefenokee Swamp and wetlands and it was a success. I can see the same thing happening here.

Now, I hope Palm Beach and Broward counties will take a restoration effort to their beaches soon. Many of the beaches in Ft. Lauderdale are like sandy garbage dumps and aren’t very scenic, same way in Miami. Ever see the movie Bad Boys 2? Most of those beach scenes were actually filmed in Delray Beach because Miami’s beaches are trashed and overcrowded for the most part. The beaches are becoming more littered and actually shrinking as time goes on so I really hope they try and start saving them before our dunes disappear.

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