Rethinking The Everglades Situation

Gregg Easterbrook reviews Michael Grunwald's new book "The Swamp" and reflects on the results of a century of mindless planning decisions that have adversely affected the integrity of one of the largest and most important natural reserves in the southeastern U.S. Grunwald glosses over the process that began with the original settlements and Henry Flagler's land grab, and he continues up to today with the efforts to undo at least part of the damage made by previous land-use policies that saw Everglades land as plain and simple acreage to be filled over and developed, and the native flora and fauna -- mangroves, mosquitoes and alligators -- as a nuisance to the new residents of Southern Florida. However, the reviewer thinks that Grunwald is making too hard a case for returning the swamp to a "natural state" that may never be attained again, as humankind and time have transformed the Everglades in unknown and unpredictable ways. Easterbrook thinks that time must take its own course in this case.

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Thanks to Jorge Ortiz Colom