Travel: Exploring the Everglades | Life | tdtnews.com

What constitutes the Everglades? Marshes, sawgrass prairies, forests and a diversity of habitats define this water-dependent wilderness. The Everglades extend from the archipelago along the Gulf of Mexico eastward to the Atlantic Ocean and southward to the beautiful blue-green Caribbean-like waters of Florida Bay. This wilderness is formed by the Kissimmee River in central Florida that empties into Lake Okeechobee and then extends over low-lying land like an umbrella in all directions to Biscayne Bay, Florida Bay, and Ten Thousand Islands. Nine specific ecosystems can be identified here: marine and estuarine, coastal marsh, mangroves, cypress, coastal prairie, freshwater slough, pineland, freshwater marl prairie, and tropical hardwood hammocks. Natural disasters such as hurricanes, fires, and storms enable this diversity. However, the Everglades is threatened by a tenth ecosystem of urbanization and agriculture. At the Coe visitor’s center near Homestead, there is an informative display highlighting the “great water debate”, with differing perspectives of homeowners, farmers, fishermen, rangers, conservationists, tourists, and environmentalists. Dams, levees, canals, roads, and land diverted for agricultural purposes and buildings all threaten these habitats and the birds, mammals, reptiles, and fish therein, as well as the aquifer of fresh water it provides for all of south Florida.