The Florida Everglades, an Ecosystem on the Brink Thursday, Sep 27 2007

The Florida Everglades is only sub-tropical wetland in the United States and one of the largest in the world. Today, the Everglades makes up only half of its original size, which scientists say was about 40 miles wide and nearly 200 miles long. Most of the remaining area is now protected by national parks. Many human factors have caused this precious environment to shrink in size and become such a protected area, but there are still some wonderful sights to be seen in this rare and truly unique environment.

The Florida Everglades are essentially a slow moving river which was formed from flooding during the rainy season in southern Florida. The flooding caused waters from Lake Okeechobee, a large, shallow lake, to overflow into the very flat, limestone valleys below.  Likewise, the Kissimmee River would overflow its banks in the wet season and add to the flood that brought about the formation of the Everglades. This slow-moving body of water flows from Lake Okeechobee down to the southern tip of Florida and Florida Bay.  The Everglades exists because of Florida’s distinct wet and dry seasons, Florida’s flat topography, and Florida’s extensive system of shallow lakes and rivers, which give the Everglades the ability to continue, but that sustainability is being threatened by human interaction with the natural ecosystem.

The Everglades has long been a significant source for freshwater for many years.  The city of Miami draws its water supply from the Everglades and therefore greatly benefits from its existence, although they may not totally realize it.

The ecosytem of the Everglades is a place where numerous rare and endangered species survive, such as the Florida panther, the West Indian manatee, and the wood stork, along with twelve other species.  These species are quite rare to see, even for scientists who study the Everglades and frequently go on excursions into the area.  The population of Florida panthers is especially small, as there are only 30-50 of the animals left,  making it the rarest native animal in the area.  The panthers are suffering from human intervention cutting down their habitat and therefore are also suffering the effects of inbreeding with such a small population.  The West Indian manatee is an animal which is perhaps one of the most  gentle in the world.  It has no known natural enemies, save perhaps the human, and that only because WE have made it so.  The manatee’s time is divided between resting, playing, and eating, the good life.  The manatee’s greatest problem is people boating.  Manatee’s like to float near the surface of the water, and the propellers from boats can cut the manatee’s back and cause infections that can lead to their death.  This has prompted officials to set no wake zones where manatee’s are known to live in order to try and prevent this from happening.  The wood stork is a bird which has been studied as the indicator species, which means that because the wood stork has adapted so well to living in the Everglades, researchers have taken how well the stork is doing as a measure of how well the Everglades in general is doing.  Well, neither the Everglades nor the wood stork are doing well.  Since the Everglades has been systematically cut and drained over the past few decades, the woodstork, as well as many other birds indiginous to the Everglades, has been diminishing greatly in number.

The main reason that the Everglades has diminished to half its original size is mainly because of agricultural and real estate interests.  Farmers and developers alike want the land that was once thought to be uninhabitable.  The draining of the marshy areas causes the original habitat to be destroyed and the indiginous species can no longer live there, causing them to be smushed into a smaller area.  Another reason why indiginous species are losing population are because of invasive species that human have introduced into the environment.  A tree called the melaleuca tree was spread by planes over the Everglades by plane in order to “dry up” the land so that it could be made suitable development.  Now, the tree has grown rapidly throughout the area and has endangered the survival of some of the indiginous plant species, as well as that the tree is highly flammable, which adds to the probability for wildfires.  An animal that has been introduced into the area and is causing trouble is the Burmese python, indiginous to southeast Asia.  The rise of the python in the area is because of the pet trade.  When people see that their python has grown too large, they let thier pet out into the wilderness.  Apparently, the Everglades is the perfect place to have pythons, because they are growing rapidly and are coming into contact with some of the endangered species of the area, such as the Amercian alligator.  There have been at least four recorded incidents between pythons and the endangered alligators.

Steps are being taken in order to try and preserve this truly unique ecosystem and allow the creatures that live there to continue.  I only hope that the action being taken is not too late and that this wonderful area can be preserved for generations to come.

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Turf, Friend or Foe? Wednesday, Sep 12 2007

Turf, friend or foe? This question is one which can greatly affect the environment of the world.  If friend, then the community of Earth, more specifically that of the United States, can go on with the same irrigation systems and techniques that have been used to water the countries lawns in recent years.  If not, then the people of the United States need to rethink the impact that their combined use of water and fertilizers has on the environment. 

According to the research that has been conducted by scientists which I have read, the lawns in the United States are most certainly a collective foe to the world environment.  The use of water to keep our lawns looking beautiful is a large drain on the world water supply, which as of right now is becoming very short in supply.  The study done by scientist Cristina Milesi showed that the vast majority of lawns in the U.S. cannot sustain themselves by the water allotted them by nature and would die if it were not for the large amounts of water people use in order to keep their lawns green.  The problem is that most of the grass used in lawns today are not indiginous to the area in which they are planted.  An example used by Milesi was the common use of Kentucky blue grass for lawns.  Normally, this type would be restricted to a specific area in which its optimal growing conditions are maintained, but because of the want for lawns to look a certain way, thic type of grass has been transported throughout the country to environments in which it doesn’t naturally grow.  The result is that large amounts of water are used to make sure the grass grows.  If the grass used in lawns were indiginous to the area in which they are being grown, vast amounts of resources could be saved in watering and the use of fertilizer.  As Milesi explains in her article, in her birth country of Italy, the lawns are small and made up of indiginous plants which are able to withstand the hot summers without drying up and dying.  If this was applied in the U.S., a majority of the estimated 200 centimeters per year needed to water the average lawn could be saved, which is also 2 meters of water.  Another problem that exists with the typical American lawn is that, although altogether the combined lawns could store a large amount of carbon, 16.7 teragrams per year, which is 16.7e10 kilograms and 3.68e10 pounds, this is only a small amount compared to the amount of carbon released from the emmissions of carseach year, as well as the amount of carbon that trees could store in that same area would immensly outweigh that of grass.  Therefore, growing trees in stead of non-indiginous grass would be greatly better for the environment and therefore the human racein the future.   If people grew four trees in place of their lawns, the impact would be enourmous and would most likely greatly help the crisis that is going on today.  Another advantage to trees is that they need not nearly as much water as lawns do and therefore would help stave off the elimination of the world’s fresh water supply.  Milesi’s report claims that leaving grass clippings on lawns would lead to a greater storage of carbon, which is because the grass left on the lawn would store carbon before i decomposes.  However, the article also states that the leaving of clippings could eventually lead to no real benifit because as the grass decomposes, it releases carbon emmissions which could cancel out the carbon that the grass storedin the first place. 

There are several steps which can be taken in order to reduce the negative impact which a lawn has on the environment.  One is to simply have an efficient use of water.  People should have set amounts of water they are able to use for watering according to the areain which they live and the amount of recent precipitation there has been.  Some areas out West are already employing this tactic, however I believe that the entire country should use this method in order to conserve water supplies.  Another step that could be taken would be to plant a tree in stead of grass because trees store more carbon than grass.  If we do not change the ways in which we take care of our lawns, they will continue to be a contributing factor in the environmental crisis that the world is facing today.

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