ABSTRACT
The wetlands of Florida—salt, brackish, and fresh—have been under assault by technology and the longest sustained migration any American state has experienced. An endless flow of newcomers creates a market demand for homesites on or near the shores of lakes, rivers, and bays—a demand which entrepreneurs are pleased to accommodate by dredging, filling, and draining the wetlands of the state, Florida’s most valuable life-support systems. Wetlands are among the most ancient life-support systems. Wetlands sustain an enormous diversity of aquatic and semi-terrestrial plants and animals. Man has destroyed much of the capacity of wetlands to assimilate wastes and, consequently, has helped convert several major freshwater lakes into eutrophic nutrient sink. He has lowered water levels in wetlands so much, and has so altered their seasonal regimes, as to place great stress on a major national park, the Everglades National Park.
