Everglades National Park

The Everglades National Park is an American national park where is protecting the original Everglades in Florida. It is a first created to protect its unique and fragile ecosystem, a natural region that occupies shallow limestone floored basins of tropical wetland and forests fed by a river flowing out of Lake Okeechobee, into Florida Bay. It is also characterized by its size, it is the third-largest national park in the United States.

“If the Grand Canyon was a breathtaking painting, the Everglades was a complex drama, and everything in it had a role.” - Michael Grunwald

Everglades National Park is characterized by both fragile and resilient. It is unique for consisting of grass marshes, mangrove forests, and hardwood hammocks dominated by wetlands. The place is also a home for around 11,000 species of plants and 400 species of land or water vertebrates live in the Everglades. Commonly known species are American Alligator, Coral Snake, Florida Panther, grass marshes, mangrove plants, and even more endangered, rare, and exotic wildlife.

Freshwater is a most common ecosystem in Everglades National Park. The drainage channels are covered in freshwater, and the prominent tall-growing marsh plants made the park to be called "River of Grass".

Mangrove trees that cover the coastlines of South Florida, appear within the Everglades ecosystem also. Mangrove trees in Everglades uniquely adapted to extreme conditions of saltwater, winds, extreme tides, high temperatures, and muddy soils. Within the mangrove systems, more than 200 species of marine life are existing.

Coastal lowlands, wet prairies, are saltwater marshes that absorb seawater. Only a few plants can grow in this condition, where to tolerate salt and desert-like condition.

According to the study, the first humans, Paleo-Indians, have arrived in the Florida landscape. The landscape they discovered was with plants and animals adapted for desert conditions in the past. But the sudden climate changes have brought changes in the landscape to become wetter (Florida National Parks Association, 2011).

Although Everglades has its own beauty and uniqueness in the natural environments, it has been suffering from pollution, water loss, loss of habitat, and wildlife over the past hundred years. According to the study, almost half of the Everglades has been drained and it leads to a negative effect on the wildlife since the draining.

From the perspective of human geography, urban development is essential but losing an invaluable natural environment should never be repeated again.

Everglades region was not a good place for people to live in for the past thousands of years due to its landscape characteristics. However, urban development in Southern Florida changed it dramatically by facilitating drainage projects. Enforcing of making more land by destroying its original ecosystem has caused many problems. Not only just degraded natural environments but also because water system blocked the natural water canal, Everglades faced huge flood issue in 1920.

"Through this legislation that river of grass may now be restored to its natural flow of water" - George H. W. Bush

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush signed the Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act to restore water to improve the ecosystems within Everglades National Park to conserve natural species and the ecosystem. And in the year 2000, Congress approved the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) to restore Everglades in object to "Restoration, preservation, and protection of the south Florida ecosystem while providing for other water-related needs of the region". CERP was responsible to restore the contaminated man-made wetland from construction to Everglades before. The project began by released freshwater into the underground every day. Currently, the land has recovered most of the part except the damage from unexpected hurricanes.

Recently the Everglades National Park preserves a good combination of unique wildlife and environments with downtown Miami, Florida. The residents or the visitors may take advantage to enjoy access to metropolitans and to encounter and explore the view, wildlife, and resources. It is just amazing how the park is about one hour away from the metropolitan city, Miami.

However, urban development always threatens the protected areas. And as new buildings and industrial zones grow the water balance and ecosystems within Everglades park should be negatively affected.

As expected, National Geographic rated Everglades National Park at 32 out of 100. The scoring systems rate sustainable tourism, destination quality, and park management.

"Encroachment by housing and retail development has thrown the precious ecosystem into a tailspin, and if humankind doesn't back off, there will be nothing left of one of this country's most amazing treasures". - Hamashige, 2005

The Everglades National Park is a broad protected area of land in South Florida, which consists of 1.5 million acres of wetland. It is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States.

The Everglades is a natural region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical. Because the form of the ecosystem is not presented anywhere else on earth, it makes Everglades even unique.

Everglades National Park is the national treasure in geographical view. As we already have experienced a piece of what's going to happen without the Everglades, it is not a waste to use it to live with us. Although it seems unclear if the Everglades park is under protection or under the threat, one clear fact is that we cannot live without the great value it has.

It is always great to hear the technology development makes our lives better; however, it may be the right time for us to think of what really makes our lives colorful.