Honorary Chair
Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008
President
Daniel A. Bennett
Honorary President
James Fowler
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Honorary Chair Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 |
President Daniel A. Bennett |
Honorary President James Fowler |
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PUBLICATIONS
By Michael Grunwald
Review by Club staff Jeff Stolzer This important book is an exhaustively researched history of the Everglades and an eye-opening exposé of the numerous ways that greed and personal ambition have shaped the development of the Sunshine State since the late nineteenth century. Author Michael Grunwald, a national reporter for The Washington Post, does a masterful job of describing the various schemes that were concocted by a variety of developers and politicians to drain the Everglades and "reclaim" the land for productive uses like housing, farming, and recreation. As described in the book, Floridians' attitude toward "the swamp" reflected our national understanding of the natural world: it was something to be conquered and subdued, rather than protected and nurtured. Reclamation and drainage were equated with proper conservation. This attitude, which was reflected in the ambitious schemes of men like Henry Flagler and Napoleon Bonaparte Broward, has had disastrous consequences for the Everglades, starving it of its lifeblood, water. Thanks to the efforts of visionary conservationists like the late Marjory Stoneman Douglas who recognized the raw beauty and importance of "the river of grass", that attitude has finally changed. But it may be too late, according to Grunwald—the Everglades may not be dead, but it is barely on life support. And Florida has become so overdeveloped that it is virtually impossible to put the genie back in the bottle and truly save one of the world's most unique ecosystems.
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