If you're interested in the crucial work being done to restore habitat for wildlife in Florida in general and the Everglades in particular, I strongly recommend the excellent documentary Path of the Panther that centers on the work of Carlton Ward and the Florida Wildlife Corridor initiative.
I believe the documentary should be released on Disney+ in late April but it already premiere in some theaters in Florida.
These folks are doing incredible undervalued work to protect endangered species in the Southeast US. They're also trying to prevent Florida from building multiple new toll roads cutting through pristine inland areas of the state which would devastate already struggling ecosystems due to the rising waters in the Everglades.
It's been great to see Governor DeSantis show leadership on Everglades restoration. Too many "conservative" Republicans have neglected conserving our environment, but hopefully that is changing.
(Edit: I don't mean to give him sole or primary credit for this project or any other. It's just that the default position of Republicans on any environmental issue is too often "screw nature", so any exception is welcome.)
his name is nowhere to be found in this piece, but it seems this was started long ago:
> The disrupted hydrology and ecological problems were so glaring that, beginning in the 1990s, the Army Corps and a variety of state, federal, and local partners cooperated to undo the damage. More than 20 years later, at a cost of over $1 billion, the physical restoration of the river is now complete: 40 square miles of wetlands have been reestablished and rehydrated.
He -has- done some positive things towards the Everglades (signed an EO that puts another 3.5 billion towards restoration and water management there), but I do tend to think his track record is ultimately kind of limited just from the fact he denies climate change as being 'woke' (and sought to expand fossil fuel use and curb/ignore renewable use).
It also happens to align with Republican Florida voters; the Everglades hasn't been politicized in the way climate change has.
He went out of his way to BAN cities from restricting use of fossil fuels and punished banks that restrict fossil fuel investments
The Everglades restoration project was well underway before DeSantis, though he did pledge more money to accelerate it. But the Sierra Club and Friends of the Everglades have also criticized the planned reservoir as too small to truly restore water flows
The real reason for DeSantis' position here is obvious to anyone that knows anything about the history of Florida politics. The sugar industry is probably the biggest political force in Florida having both Dems and Reps in its payroll. It just so happens that they backed an opponent of DeSantis and DeSantis has had a very public beef with them ever since. In order to carry out this restoration plan, it means refilling the everglades that were drained in order to grow sugar canes. This is a direct attack on DeSantis' biggest and most powerful opponent and just so happens to also be very politically popular with the every day voter
EDIT: it seems my comment about the project being "well underway" is a little inaccurate. The project has a long history but by the time DeSantis took office the South Florida Water Management District had actually quietly reversed these plans, bending under pressure from the sugar industry. DeSantis replaced the board entirely and therefore played a significant role in resuming the effort
I hate that this is becoming political, but just because the article does not mention him does not mean he did not in fact include[0] the Kissimmee River as part of the Florida Forever Plan[1].
Can we please keep politics out of this, and focus on what's actually relevant?
I love my home state, and I think it's fantastic, I had no idea such a river extended down to Lake Okeechobee, I've driven from Kissimmee Turnpike all the way down to Miami, and Okeechobee is one of the many exits in between, that's quite impressive. I'm sure it's no small feat to invest in conserving all of that land, I'm not even sure what all that entails, but it's not easy.
I lived in FL during the DeSantis/Gillum election and voted in the election (not for DeSantis). Everglades conservation was one of his main points he was running on and things he's done. Don't want to get too political in this thread, but he seems good on this point.
> In his first term, with the help of the president of the Florida Senate, he’d secured an historic $1.7 billion in state and federal funding for the Everglades. Then he pledged $3.5 billion more to accelerate federal restoration plans a quarter century in the making.
I believe stating that 'this was started long ago', without mentioning the current administration's acceleration of the project doesn't tell the whole story.
Somewhat related, the Desantis administration has a decent track record when it comes to tackling toxic algae blooms. They keep on top of the issue better than Rick Scott did. https://floridadep.gov/AlgalBloomWeeklyUpdate
>Republicans on any environmental issue is too often "screw nature", so any exception is welcome
Republicans have generally been active in the "save the wetlands" movement, as wetlands are necessary for there to be waterfowl and other wildlife for them to hunt. See Ducks Unlimited, with a Florida Republican as CEO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducks_Unlimited
As a temporary citizen of Florida, the politics down here are pretty atavistic: I'm pretty sure half the people in office occupy half their time with graft, and that's the standard.
But
The state really does seem to take the environment and (ironically) climate change more seriously than other places. At least in the impact sense (yet still 75% natural gas electrical generation, because deregulation).
I guess getting hit by hurricanes and storm surges regularly focuses the mind?
Plus Florida is essentially is a few bits of dry land in a bog (the highest point in the state is 100 meters above sea level), so state management is water and wetlands management.
Not just "deregulation". DeSantis has actively banned cities from restricting fossil fuels. He's also punished banks that refuse to invest in fossil fuel. I think it's a bit disingenuous to categorize that as "de-" regulation.
Nuclear power has had some recent embarrassments in Florida that I think are enough to put most of the average voters in a lot of the state off. I won't go into details, but check out what happened to the Crystal River plant, the "planned expansion" at Turkey Point that FPL customers paid a boatload for which never came to pass, and or course no nuclear story in the South would be complete without mention of Vogtle.
FPL was caught doing some incredibly bad political stuff in recent years. It's kind of horrifying, the lengths they'll go just to keep their profits up. But Floridians by and large don't seem to care much what happens in the state, as long as it stays red.
Most of the money in Florida is concentrated in the lower half of the state, deeper in the peninsula where it's more vulnerable to climate change. Also, just because these turnarounds happen in states doesn't mean that state governments are primarily responsible. Florida doesn't have the resources available to do this on their own.
Its budget is proportional to it's size in population and land. Of course Florida has a bigger budget than Vermont, or Virginia. More people, more land, more taxes on tourists, etc. It's not about the size of the budget, but rather budget per resident, and where that money goes. I've lived in Florida for a long time. I've lived in other states too. It's what Florida does with that money that has me shaking my head. War with Disney, Anti-LGBTQ legislation, book burning, government waste, poor roads outside of I-4 and I-95. Toll Roads everywhere. Ugh...
What this shows is that a concrete environmental problem that directly impacts constituents can actually bypass a lot of the partisanship.
It's a lot easier to ignore climate change, since the impacts are far removed from any single direct action. But here Floridians have over the course of a generation seen a river essentially die, with a clear cause and obvious solution.
Nobody wants to destroy rivers for no gain. Rather, people are willing to destroy the environment when the benefits are evident and the costs are hidden to them (or paid by somebody elsewhere).
1. https://pathofthepanther.com
2. http://floridawildlifecorridor.org
I believe the documentary should be released on Disney+ in late April but it already premiere in some theaters in Florida.
These folks are doing incredible undervalued work to protect endangered species in the Southeast US. They're also trying to prevent Florida from building multiple new toll roads cutting through pristine inland areas of the state which would devastate already struggling ecosystems due to the rising waters in the Everglades.