Big Cypress Swamp: The Western Everglades

funding for Big Cypress Swamp the Western Everglades is provided by the Collier County tourist development council the South Florida Water Management District the Friends of Big Cypress and the friends of fakahatchee [Music] [Music] I'm Clyde butcher welcome to my backyard I live in the heart of the Big Cypress Swamp along with a lot of other creatures it's been my privilege the photograph of the Big Cypress for the past 25 years of its diverse landscape come join me through this great adventure the Big Cypress Swamp ours is a water world from salty seas to freshwater lakes from the ice caps to the rain forests from crystal aquifers to the rivers that flow through our veins water makes up 70 percent of the Earth's surface who would have guessed that one of the most plentiful things on earth would suddenly become one of the most valuable in the new millennium water and the ecosystems which depend upon it are under siege this crisis is being played out vividly in our wetlands South Florida contains some of the most famous wetlands on earth most folks know about the eastern Everglades made up of a national park and water conservation areas which encompass a sea of grass stretching as far as the eye can see less well known and perhaps even more mysterious and varied is its neighbor to the west the Big Cypress Swamp together these two areas form one huge ecosystem today over a million acres of the richly diverse Everglades in Southwest Florida is protected in a variety of public lands but in the 1960s this land was slated to be drained and developed just like many areas of Florida had been over the decades through the efforts of those who have a deep connection to this land and had a vision of seeing it protected for years to come this unique region of the greater Everglades remains intact a natural area where rare plants and animals can be found and where people can recreate escape the hustle and bustle of congested coastal cities and enjoy the wilds of natural Florida in the Big Cypress Swamp [Music] [Music] Big Cypress itself is a jigsaw of wildlife refuges parks and sanctuaries recreational areas private camps and Native American communities some overlap each has its own character but all are bound together by a seasonally flowing river a sheet of living water moving slowly across South Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico together all the public lands in the Big Cypress Swamp region account for over a million acres [Music] one of the main reasons I started in my Blackpoint photography is from when my son was killed in an automobile accident and I went to Big Cypress to kind of restore my soul one of my first pictures I took is kalo choppy it was taken over this great Prairie with cabbage palms and great thundering sky I didn't realize at the time the whole foreground was cattails I thought it was Sawgrass the photograph became an emblem of Big Cypress but the butcher's surprised it also contained some important clues about the ecosystem about what's right with it as well as what's wrong [Music] humans are native to Big Cypress we've been here for thousands of years the earliest people settled in the 10,000 Islands they dined on the local fish scallops oysters they tossed aside the shells forming mittens which are still in evidence today by the 1500s Spanish conquistadors and English explorers arrived on a feverish quest for gold for the most part they were disappointed no treasure no mythic fountains in short they did not stay nor did they guess that one day water would become almost as precious as gold man was just one part of the whole it wasn't until Florida joined the Union that these wetlands became a destination and a target and it's not a coincidence that this is where the Seminoles gravitated towards when they had to to move south you know the US Army soldiers who tromped through they thought this was you know a horrible place said it was abominable a hellhole you know godforsaken swamp that we should leave to the Indians loathsome and horrible and terrible and impenetrable but the Indians saw that this was a place that could support life the last century has not exactly been a model of restraint the Everglades and Big Cypress and South Florida's natural resources we're always seen as a commodity to be exploited not just by evil greedy people but by progressive conservationists well-meaning people who saw wasteland wetlands were wastelands and conservation meant the opposite of waste the dream of South Florida people saw it as this blank canvas that they could write their dreams on that they could create this Empire of the Everglades with booming communities all you had to do is just you know knock a few holes and some natural dikes and the what Everglades would practically drain itself in order for new towns to go up the wetlands had to be made dry and so the Army Corps of Engineers was brought in to reshape the landscape and the vast swamp was carved up in a way that drastically disrupted the natural flow of water for a century water was seen as the enemy of the people of the Florida we were all about getting rid of it how can we drain it how can we dike it how can we squirt it this way when we don't want it how can we capture it how can we suck it out of the Everglades and out of the aquifers so that we can grow our civilization when the Everglades National Park was first proposed it included a large portion of the Big Cypress Swamp but Congress did not approve the full purchase and Big Cypress Swamp portion was subsequently bargained away 20 years later this unprotected area faced its most severe threat to date the building of an International Jetport the hustle and bustle of Miami International Airport with all its surrounding congestion was scheduled to be recreated right here in the heart of the swamp Dade County officials made speeches about man's manifest destiny to conquer the wilderness promised to raise that useless bog and pave it over envisioning a city of half a million people they rushed to build the first runway so that the first plane could land but they overplayed their hand they didn't understand that you know this was the Earth Day era and people were starting to understand that you know the water we drink the air we breathe the landscapes we like that it's important to people as well as to the bugs and bunnies and yellow-bellied sapsuckers [Music] [Music] [Music] a young television reporter named Joe Browder and rising politician Nathanael Reed are among those who spearheaded the resistance now Joe saw his first mud stake in Big Cypress he said he thought it was smiling at him and he used to just sit there neck deep in one of those swamps and just watch the light change and he just loved this place the notion that this silent Majesty was gonna be overrun by trucks and planes there was gonna be a take-off every minute no he wasn't gonna have that and so Joe started to fight he didn't just complain about it he organized the key was helping to find lots of people with very diverse interests but a common thread of love for the Everglades who in their own ways could contribute Browder managed to build a coalition of unlikely cohorts all of whom wanted to put a halt to the proposed Jetport not to mention the real estate boom and surrounding swampland which had been triggered by it he United some traditional antagonists environmentalists and hunters as well as Miccosukee Indians Hispanics labor unions liberals and conservatives some local folk proved invaluable when the new developers arrived to survey Big Cypress they couldn't carry out a plan like that unless they first platted surveyed and plan of the area how does surveyors get around out there well they they needed somebody in an airboat try them out there who were a lot of the airboat drivers people who at night when they drove their airboat said they were frogging but they weren't after frogs they were after alligators the alligator poachers who loved the Everglades as deeply as anyone else the poachers would call me in my autumn own office and say okay so and so company has hired so-and-so survey company to go and Platts in such a place and the word is they're doing it because they want to create a drainage district there Audubon went out and bought a few acres right in the middle of this place and then when the people filed to create their drainage district we sued and said you can't do that because we bought this land to enjoy it in its natural state and we won the suit meanwhile Governor Claude Kirk had just appointed the state's first environmental adviser Nathanael read the Jetport project was already in the works when Reed flew over the area in a small airplane what he saw below was disturbing immediately upon his return to Tallahassee Reed poured over hydrological maps of South Florida didn't take a genius to figure out that if the jet port was built and developed and her high-speed railroad train was built crossing water conservation area 3 to get to Miami that would interfere with the flow again the heart of the Everglades system is flow and so the recognition that I had to change the governor hit me like a lightning bolt [Music] [Music] i unfolded on his desk aerial photographs wonderful drawings that I had prepared showing the flows and a huge sphere of influence of the potential development around the Jetport and a major artery between the Jetport in miami and i pointed out that the cost of the bond issue for the railroad we'd bankrupt New York City much less Miami the governor became after about 20 minutes became very twitchy he said I went down there where were you why didn't you advise me on this earlier I went down there I got carried away it's a big deal for Florida all the congressional delegation want it it appears that the Nixon administration wants it it's a really big deal now you want me to say you've got real concerns and qualms a second that doubts the governor agreed to slow the pace of the construction giving Reid time to put together a team and prepare a series of scientifically based questions for Dade County officials and so we went for ten consecutive questions the answer was that question is under study so I stood up and said if the answer to the next 92 questions is that the question is under study please spare me time I've got a lot of things else to do in life then sit here and listen to that answer and halt put his finger out like this and said you are a white militant and you're destructive and he pointed at broader and said you're a white terrorist and with that the whole room erupted everybody stood up and shaking their hands if they shot him and he said you're damn right everything's under study you bunch of nerds here you're not gonna an answer out of me today if ever with that if the 80 90 of us walked out but of course the press corps I wish there was televised every writer from Palm Beach Post sun-sentinel Miami Herald was there the New York Times was there you name it the AP the UPI everybody was there it was the damnedest most unbelievable show I went to a telephone call the governor up he said they it read later became Assistant Secretary of the Interior under Nixon once again he found opportunities to help save the South Florida ecosystem known at took the Secretary of Interior on a trip into you know into into the swamp by getting Wally Hickel to feel it not helped turn around the Nixon administration and it was one of those against all odds victories stopping the Jetport was only one of many battles big cypress was still vulnerable many smaller developers didn't give up until the very end people with real dreams these were people without a lot of money who'd invested in a few hundred acres here a few thousand acres there and these enormous visions of wealth pouring into their land if it could only be drained those people got really upset some of them put up wanted posters out on the Tamiami Trail saying God will reward any man who accidentally shoots Jobe router or Nathaniel Reid or Bob Graham they were accused of using underhanded methods swaying public opinion by bringing Julie Nixon eisenhower to a low snake infested lake bed several miles south on the Tamiami Trail and waited Julie into the Roberts Lake swamp to portray before the nation on TV despite all threats by the people who wanted to drain the swamp the Jetport project was halted miles of privately owned lands were obtained to protect the swamp through this effort the Big Cypress National Preserve was born otherwise the green western lands would soon looked like the overdeveloped east coast in an effort to include the local folk who had helped stop the Jetport those who had long made Big Cypress their home and had put themselves on the line to save it a new concept was born why not make it a preserve a place that would protect the natural world from being paved over but which allowed limited hunting which made it possible for camp owners to keep their family cabins which gave the native people the legal right to continue their way of life there was a growing recognition that a compromise would be better for this unique region rather than losing it all together the goal was to protect a vast area of the swamp while continuing to allow for traditional uses that have occurred for decades and why alienate the very people you may need to stand up for Big Cypress in the future but was this doable would man reconsider his abusive relationship with nature and turned things around a Big Cypress National Preserve was created by Congress in 1974 and it's unique in the fact that it's one of the first national preserves within the National Park Service in the United States and it came about through a compromise between environmentalists and sportsmen groups and conservationists who all came to the table recognizing that they needed to protect this area of South Florida to ensure the water flow from the Big Cypress Swamp into the ten thousand islands in Everglades National Park this was crucial the original ecosystem had been vast it started with the water flowing down the Kissimmee River and into Lake Okeechobee during the summer storms the lake would spill over its lower bank in an enormous sheet this was the beginning of what author Marjory Stoneman Douglas called the river of grass from there the water would evaporate in form clouds the winds would blow the clouds west and the water would return as rain [Music] because the Big Cypress Swamp Basin is a rain driven system it is more pristine than other areas of the Everglades which rely on water from lakes and rivers to the north water off this land flows eastward in two important water conservation areas and Southwest into the 10,000 Islands replenishing and purifying them both it's a lifesaver but the system is not undamaged much of the flow has already been disastrously rerouted by the Corps of Engineers and there was more well in the 70s a couple of brothers who they've gotten rich selling their miracle hair tonic that was going to cure baldness and then they came down to South Florida and and started selling miracle swampland you know around the Picayune strand it was gonna be called Golden Gate estates they talked about these magnificent restaurants and golf courses and tennis courts and five-star hotels approximately 10,000 lots were sold but only a few houses went up with landowners spread around the world it took the state of Florida 15 years to acquire the properties little did they know that in August this area was under two feet of water the major damage was caused by the construction of roads and canals the US Army Corps of Engineers South Florida Water Management District and other land management agencies have taken on the restoration challenge their staff work in unison with other government agencies creating partnerships facilitating communication and establishing priorities such as the Picayune strand state forest restoration program cracking out and 65 miles of roads and the restoration includes large-scale Road removal filling in the existing canals and restoring the hydrology to the ten thousand island system the Picayune strand restoration efforts will revitalize the nursery areas for the fin fish and the shellfish boosting the economy for recreational and commercial fishermen there's this sense that the East Coast has gone through a tremendous effort to restore lost conditions whereas the West Coast here we have the opportunity to preserve and I can tell you I've been at this for 30 years preservation is a lot cheaper and it definitely is the way to go again it isn't just about the environment it's about the economy in human health as well [Music] rookery Bay National estuarine research Reserve and Everglades National Park protect a vast area of the ten thousand island estuary this is a unique place with the salt water from the Gulf of Mexico and the fresh water from the Big Cypress Swamp mix the ten thousand islands estuary is a nursery for top and snapper and snook among many other species but it's located in a rapidly developing region in Collier County the challenge of protecting the health of the bay while dealing with the pressures of new residential and industrial development is huge [Music] the public land managers within the big cypress swamp work together to protect the incredible diversity of plant and animal life within its boundaries [Music] [Music] one of our most recognizable and elusive residents is the endangered Florida panther these great cats once roamed over the southeastern United States by the late 1800s most had been eradicated people shot them when they preyed upon livestock but Panthers have also been killed off indirectly through loss of habitat by a relentless encroachment of modern civilization the male Panther typically needs 200 square miles of roaming space the female 80 where are they going to find that today and if they were to disappear what does that bode for the other critters the panther is what we call an umbrella species if the Panthers are healthy so is everything else if we protect Panther habitat then we protect all the other animals that live within its range deer black bear Bobcat wild turkey raccoons and rabbits wood storks and wading birds the list goes on in 1989 the Florida panther National Wildlife Refuge was established in the heart of the Big Cypress Basin this unique track contains three types of habitats which Panthers need most prairies Pinelands and oak hammocks allowed the big cats to feed and rest [Music] controlled burning is practiced in this area as well as on other tracks throughout the Big Cypress Swamp Basin normally during the the beginning of the growing season which would be May June fires occurred naturally they would be started by lightning and allowed to burn to their conclusion we can't do that anymore so what our fire management activities do is try and mimic those activities with the right timing fire recycles the nutrients new green shoots attract white-tailed deer the Panthers favorite meal cabbage palms if not controlled could shade out the greenery on which the deer feed around the time the Panther refuge was created they were only 20 to 30 Florida Panthers left in the wild there were so few left and they were so isolated inbreeding had begun to take a toll kittens were being born with genetic defects such as heart problems and immune deficiencies the population seemed doomed the solution mail-order brides from Texas ate healthy female Cougars were imported by wildlife agencies after two years of having offspring these Texas Cougars were removed within ten years the Panther population tripled the offspring are considered Florida Panthers and are protected by the Endangered Species Act today there are over a hundred Panthers that range through the Big Cypress Swamp while safely sedated the Panthers are fitted with radio collars this helps biologists track the animals movements throughout the rest of the year to see which areas they're using as a home range blood is taken as well as hair and skin samples so that the health of the species can be carefully monitored have we managed to solve all the problems this rare creature faces not by a long shot as more wilderness is converted to agriculture and neighboring subdivisions go up the big cats habitat continues to shrink and as it shrinks these territorial creatures can turn on each other infighting is the leading cause of death among Panthers others sadly become roadkill people are moving into Panther habitat we're having Panthers take people's pets and their livestock well that's something that the people out west that live in them in the Rocky Mountains and areas out there and in California have learned a long time ago you can live with a large carnivore the Panther is not the only charismatic inhabitant of Big Cypress the fakahatchee strand is home to 44 kinds of orchids most mysterious of all is the ghost orchid I've seen the ghost orchid in a little rain shower and little water droplets with it it'll just bounce like a ballet dancer we've seen now about three hundred and ten different ghost orchids back hatchet is the orchid capital United States but is the largest strand swamp within the Big Cypress Swamp system basically strand swamps are elongated channels or shallow valleys in the limestone that have been eroded over the past five thousand years strand swamps have several features which make it an ideal home for orchids and bromeliads first there is the water a seasonally flowing river in winter as the leaves fall from the trees they sink to the bottom and become peat and muck during the dry season the riverbed acts as a sponge releasing moisture and defending the tropical plants against fire and drought a canopy overhead provides shelter this green umbrella holds in the humidity and protects the more delicate plants from frost in the coolest months it's also a shield against the wind and the Sun which can dry everything out with its UV rays most of these plants are called epiphytes which means they grow on trees without causing any harm they were brought here by migrating birds from South America and the Caribbean islands some plants may have arrived on the winds of hurricanes there is only one known insect which can pollinate the ghost orchid the giant Sphinx moth when it hatches the moths will have a six inch wingspan but its tongue is even longer which is why some people call it the flying tongue when the giant Sphinx moth flies up to a ghost orchid has to RAM its head under the anther cap and put its tongue down the long nectar spur the ghost orchid to get that high energy sugar rewards like jet fuel to fuel them to fly to another flower as the moth feeds pollen sticks to its head when the insect visits another orchid and pokes its head under another cap the pollen comes off bingo the orchid has been fertilized every wild adult orchid you see out there is really a winner of the lottery you know because the the chances of any one seed surviving are millions to one has to land in just the right place for sunlight and temperature and humidity and it has to land on fungi an interaction between the orchid seed and this fungi allows both plants to survive [Music] for me a toga started with the romance of the ghost orchid and how Mike did it he got you to the location and once you got to the location he'll tell you okay now you look for it so it made part of the excitement and then when you look at this beautiful white flower dangling from a flower spike coming out of these fruits I was just in awe of it and I fell in love and I've been lucky enough and fortunate enough to be one of the few people that have been out here in the middle of the night to smell its fragrance which is a beautiful scent we all try always to describe it it's really funny we can get four or five men out here trying to explain a perfume we came in must have been about eight o'clock it was not a song that it was just after sunset and we would stand here to almost two o'clock in the morning on time every 30 40 minutes climb up the ladder going sniff this ghost and then your favorite question to ask what is a small like you got your no patter okay what is a small like I'm red I'm like well it's really hard explain it's a very clean smell the only thing I can think of is this more like like a baby perfume just very very just it's the only word we can come up with it it's most very clean what word have you come up with I can't do any better it's just very very clear very finally got your girlfriend to go up there a dirt so we waited for her to come down and one day we got a woman's purpose but yeah they know how to you know talk about odors or at least describe them we don't even know colors and then so we're expecting to find out finally we're gonna go store please almost drop the notebook the warm wet South Florida climate which allows the ghost orchid to flourish also has its drawbacks it serves as an incubator for many less desirable invaders when Brazilian pepper was sold as a yard plant back in the 1930s the birds gobbled it up and spread it around [Music] solid stands of Brazilian pepper now covered tens of thousands of acres in the Big Cypress Swamp this has led to an ongoing battle in order to ensure the biological integrity within the Big Cypress Swamp land managers must constantly deal with the intruders that's what we're trying to do here in Big Cypress is get rid of a lot of this stuff that doesn't belong here and we're making good progress even native plants can become a menace as it turns out Clyde butchers iconic photograph was made possible through the incursion of phosphorus based fertilizer it seeped down from tomato farms which flourished during the 1950s and that's how the cattails took off there was one point where I said to myself maybe I shouldn't be showing this because it's all from the cattails and I said well maybe it's important to show it the cattails are a necessary part of the Everglades they just are necessary in large quantities when you see a large quantity you know man's been messing around when I'm creating a photograph I think it's important to create a space so a person can feel like they're there if you don't have that space they don't have a connection and that's what I'm trying to do is connect people with the Everglades Big Cypress fakahatchee corkscrew all these different places if they can't feel a connection how they got to feel it's important was the water hump right here it's a more shade in here and who said it got deeper why did the water get deeper here the staff of the Big Cypress National Preserve and their partners in government work in unison to make education a priority it's not a job that can be done by any one agency or any single organization we really have to try to engage the mainstream public in this idea of stewardship for the coast and people can do that through individual actions they can do it through community involvement or by volunteering in in helping out in a in a variety of ways how do you live in Panther habitat and you can and you can do it safely so we've started outreach efforts through town hall meetings it just takes some precautions it means locking your pets up at night or putting in them in pens it's an education that we've got to do not just to protect people's lives but to also protect the animals that live down here and whose habitat they've moved into in this spirit Park experts host wildflower walks there are birding festivals staff biologists and botanists lead school groups and Scout troops on field trips [Music] a lot of them have a lot of fears before they come out they think this is gonna be a big dark scary smelly swamp with all kinds of alligators and snakes and scary things we go in the classroom beforehand to give a program and that kind of dispels some of those fears and then once they get out here and step to this spot and look into the swamp and see this clear water and see how beautiful it is they they kind of calm down we use radio telemetry to track a Florida panther which is a beanie baby with a radio transmitter on it they use the same equipment as our biologists uses to track the Florida panther we use GPS and landmarks to record the location of the panther once we find it and then we start in doing activities on animals vegetation water soil and weather I'm hoping that this gives them that foundation to build on and an interest in in the natural world and create an awareness that maybe will carry through and they can be better stewards in the future did you realize that you were coming to a National Preserve today yeah Big Cypress National Preserve it's part of the National Park Service to know the swamp you have to get into the swamp for me the highlight of any week is a swamp walk with people that want to see the Big Cypress Swamp and they are always in fir tree because they're gonna enjoy some portion of the Amazon of Florida and that's part of what the Big Cypress Swamp experience does for you it forces you to slow down and just take it in in real time I tell people on the swamp walks we have to do everything out here slowly in order to be safe and have fun all right thank you people don't have any idea what Big Cypress is until you walk through it and feel it you've got to be connected and doing those swamp walks really connects people and as we take the people through the swamp walk we stop they explain some of the ecosystems and they try to make everybody be quiet for five minutes it's hard to get people in this civilization quiet for five minutes but it's pretty effective and all of a sudden they start breathing into a little bit more it's all of a sudden you hear all kinds of little animals and crickets and frogs and Gators and birds and it'll all come if you just stayed quiet one little boy said you know I learned from this field trip that there's more to just staying inside and watching TV it's called para fight and it's really important stuff out here in the swamp back right here where we are where the water isn't too deep this is actually gonna dry down probably about March April May this is gonna be really dry [Music] for folks who love the outdoors the Big Cypress Swamp region offers countless recreational opportunities including the head of the Florida Trail System just a warning a wellness experience I can take you out there and show you areas where you even going to have wellness experience when people get to know that place and come out there they some of them get hooked immediately the places I guarantee you can hike you never run into anybody [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] old friends Steven Deline and James Hoss Cartwright are the longtime co-owners of a hunting cabin on the three acres within the preserve a family camp is a place to relax and to listen to old stories to hunt and explore the surrounding wilderness it qualifies as exempt land and there are rights to it are insured by a congressional mandate which recognizes that hunters and sportsmen worked alongside conservationists and environmentalists to help create the Big Cypress National Preserve hunting and off-road vehicle use allowed within the Preserve typically the hunting season takes place in the fall of the year and then of course turkey hunting takes place in the spring of the year off road vehicles are allowed within Big Cypress National Preserve along a designated backcountry trail network recreational use continues to allow for traditional pursuits such as hunting and access to backcountry camping we also provide for the traditional and customary rights of the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes of Florida Leroy Hannah hey ho Osceola a descendent of the famous chief and his wife Cassandra are raising their family in Big Cypress I've been teaching them since they were little they know how to do certain things I'm getting ready to teach them how to do the silver now but they do the carving and they can build uh the houses the chickies stuff like that so it's pretty good because other their relatives that live on a reservation they don't know how to do much they don't really have any chance to learn because everything is given to them you know we're trying to keep our identity strong so outside people don't tell us and come to us and tell us who we are there's just a handful of us now because everybody like migrated into other areas well we're about how to care or the next generations are gonna survive and that's what I think about that's how we were taught when we're little that's how we've always been taught my grandparents and my father's and all that that's what we live by in addition to being an oil painter Osceola is also a traditional craftsman in his gallery on the Tamiami Trail he creates silver jewelry and wooden sculptures I do sterling silver jewelry I used to see the pictures of people wearing them and stuff like that and my mother had pieces that her father had done so that's what it gave me the idea what he started up again because nobody does anything like that anymore if you see one of the photographs of one of my grandfather's chief Osceola he's wearing them you can't forget where you come from so that's to me it's part of history what I'm leaving behind but I can say these words because I live out here this is my land I'm not some foreigner coming here and you know making up stuff this was my grandfather's totem long time ago the cultural and spiritual identity of the Osceola family and other Miccosukee and Seminole people is embedded in the Big Cypress Swamp landscape and they are not the only ones who feel this way I'm not ashamed to say I love that place several of the people that I grew up with and people I came to old-timer herself felt likewise someone were totally uneducated people and they'd fought the wars came back they had all kinds of mental stress from being in Korea World War two and that was her sanctuary that kept him sane they said going out there and just getting away I call it the Cypress Cathedral that's where I find God feel closest to the Creator is out there does old-timers this is a big Cypress Swamp we called this place over here now the Western Everglades [Music] [Music] the whole thing you know was like visiting the Garden of Eden for a fifteen-year-old boy I mean you know clouds of birds alligators lying in every ditch and snakes and tarpon rolling in the canals adjacent to tamiami trail I mean how much better does it get [Music] we just couldn't live without going to the blades going to the Big Cypress going to the bay made your heart sing enriched us that made us more than we were it was great [Applause] there's no place else in the world like the Big Cypress Swamp it's it's really fantastic the biological diversity here is incredible it has great biological productivity because it's a wetland based system it's where the tropics meet the temperate zone now there's just no place else on the planet where you find this combination of habitats people ask me all the time why black and white well my son was killed and I went to black and white I started doing it coming from the heart it keeps everything the same importance a tree the sky the water it's all variations of Gray's and it becomes one and nature is one so when the black and white brings it to a oneness that you can understand everything is interrelated whether the incentive to take care of the big cypress swamp and the Everglades his scientific recreational spiritual or economic there is profound concern over the future of this priceless ecosystem restoration of the South Florida wetlands has stumbled badly in the political and economic climate of the new millennium the environmentalists they like to say that the Everglades is a test you know if we pass we may get to keep the planet it's it's going to be a test of our scientific ability you know our planning ability test of sustainable development whether we can say we can step back a little bit and say hey there are some places that man's footprint cannot go South Florida is the model for multibillion-dollar ecosystem restorations that are supposed to revive the great lakes Puget Sound the San Francisco Bay Delta the Upper Mississippi River and Louisiana's coastal wetlands and if we can't save South Florida you know the most studied wetland in the world what can we say I like to tell people that the world's round everything we do everything everybody else does comes around we don't act conscientiously to do the right thing why are other countries gonna do the right thing South Florida is where we're gonna figure out whether man can live in harmony with nature because if Collier County and miami-dade County can't figure out how to have enough water for their needs and leave some left over for the Gators and Panthers and the rest of the bugs and bunnies it's really hard to imagine that Israel and Syria are going to be able to do it and in the 21st century water is going to be as precious as oil [Music] like higher County Tourism alone is over a billion dollars a year fishing and boating for example 200 million dollars a year coming into this county alone and when you think about how those industries tie in to sustaining the health for these estuaries they're Reilly linked we can't have a strong economic base and tourism and fishing and boating without having a healthy estuary like Ric Ravana tinel's Islands [Music] Green and shortsightedness almost destroyed this paradise but more and more people are waking up to the idea that it's in our own best interest to save these natural places the drinking water upon which South Florida depends is located in the aquifers under these swamps the spirit of cooperation has saved Big Cypress Swamp in the past its future may depend upon new coalition's between environmentalists and the traditional community between positive local action and promises kept by the federal and state governments [Music] you know there's already this broad political consensus from right-wingers and left wingers and buffalo wingers everybody wants to save the Everglades and Big Cypress [Music] the question is can we learn to work together for the greater good can we learn to live with our environment well my grandchildren be able to experience these great landscapes the answer is in me and you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] funding for Big Cypress Swamp the Western Everglades is provided by the Collier County tourist development council the South Florida Water Management District the Friends of Big Cypress and the Friends of fakahatchee you

Channel: WUSF Public Media

Views: 60,910

Rating: 4.8342543 out of 5

Keywords: Florida, Nature

Id: FxM_ae5gvsQ

Length: 57min 4sec (3424 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 13 2017