Everglades National Park was officially demarcated as a park in 1947. This was done by the joint effort of some scientists and some of the earliest conservationists who walked on the earth. Many of those who advocated for the park, were interested in preserving the natural landscape for the animals. There was also a natural collection of plants that thrived off of the land. Before this, the Everglades was not attractive to anyone as it merely existed as a swamp.
Earlier on, water flowed from all the parts of South Florida. It settled on the low lying lands of Florida Bay and Ten Thousand Islands. This was a movement that flowed southward from the higher regions of Kissimmee River. The flow formed a lovely combination of ponds, marshes, sloughs , forests and uplands. The southern side of the country then slowly developed into a well balanced and enchanting ecosystem. This ecosystem was threatened in the 1900s when colonial settlers stumbled upon this ecosystem. They wanted to convert know in your agricultural and residential land. The initial plans to drain the swamp land and prepare it for agriculture began. The human activity threatened the delicate balance that the ecosystem had built for itself. This was when the groups of people under the conservationists came together and championed for the park to be saved. This saves the region and helped it maintains its natural habitats. The remarkable park has managed to stay afloat despite years of human interference going back up to 1800s (Mitsch, 2016).
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Everglades covers over 2 million acres. This area is a fragment of what once made up the great Everglades. The park incorporates parts of Central as well as Southern Florida. The water that flows from Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee also eventually flows into Florida Bay. The Everglades is surrounded by some of the biggest cities. It provides a serene atmosphere for the residents of this locations. It's location is especially significant to South Florida. The intricate water movement in the Everglades provides clean drinking water first about a third of the people in southern Florida. The Everglades also provide the residents of the state of Florida with farming opportunities. The farming activities provide food for the people of Florida. The food reserves never run out because they use the flowing water for irrigation. The rain is also sufficient for the region. Everglades is a significant part of southern Florida because it is its food basket.
The ecology of the park protects the people of Southern Florida from flooding. Without the trees and other natural features, Florida would have been swept away by floods. It also lowers the impact of the few floods that manage to get to Florida. The Everglades also favours Florida because it is an extension of its tourism appeal. The wildlife found here can be described as enchanting because of the large numbers of species found here. Visitors swarm the Everglades so that they can get to see some if tye endangered species. They include birds such as the wood stork, snail kite and the Cape Sable seaside sparrow The bottle nose dolphin and the Florida Panther are other endangered species. The plants and other species also offer a greater diversity of life (Lodge, 2016).
The existence of Everglades is critical to Florida in two major ways. The first is that the ecosystem supports life in Florida Bay through food production and water distribution. This is under threat by human interference as well as the invasion of other species. The second significant feature is that the park is park is a major source of revenue from tourism. However the Everglades continues to fight for its survival.
References
Lodge, T. E. (2016). The Everglades handbook: understanding the ecosystem . Crc Press.
Mitsch, W. J. (2016). The Role of Created and Restored Wetlands in Mitigating N and P Pollutants in Agricultural Landscapes: Case Studies in the Florida Everglades, Mississippi-Ohio-Missouri Basin, and Laurentian Great Lakes. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts .
