Florida’s Natural Treasures: Hike, Bike & Kayak the Everglades

An adventure guide to the Florida Keys and the Everglades National Park. It offers a mix of practical travel information along with details of adventurous activities, which should be fun for everyone no matter what their age or ability. The volume provides information on the history, culture, climate and geography of the area, covering its people and their roots, museums, historic sites and local attractions. The adventures include diving, canoeing, birdwatching, deep-sea fishing, aerial tours and swamp hiking. Then there is advice on where to eat and stay, transportation, practical concerns, useful websites, e-mail addresses, tourism offices and detailed regional and town maps, that feature walking and driving tours.

A biological crossroads where temperate gives way to tropical and east blends into west, Florida has over twenty-five primary habitat types, several of which are unique to the state. Within these richly varied natural communities lives an astonishing abundance of animals and plants, making Florida one of the United States' most biologically diverse regions. At the same time, sadly, Florida is also one of the country's most ecologically imperiled regions, second only to California in the number of its animals and plants that have been federally designated as endangered or threatened. This fully illustrated book is a comprehensive, yet convenient and easy-to-understand guide to Florida's endangered and threatened animals and the habitats that support them. Chris Scott covers all 71 species, subspecies, or populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, crustaceans, insects, corals, and mollusks. His species accounts describe each animal's listed status, identifying characteristics, historical and current distribution, biology, current threats, and conservation efforts. To make the crucial link between animals and their habitats, Scott also includes extensive discussions of Florida's natural regions; human impacts on the environment, including habitat destruction, pollution, and the introduction of invasive, nonnative species; and ongoing efforts to conserve and restore native plant and animal communities. With this wealth of information available in no other single volume, everyone who cares about the natural environment can help preserve one of America's biological treasurehouses.

Before 1947, when Marjory Stoneman Douglas named the Everglades a ""river of grass,"" most people considered the area worthless. She brought the world's attention to the need to preserve the Everglades. In the Afterword, Michael Grunwald tells us what has happened to them since then. Grunwald points out that in 1947 the government was in the midst of establishing the Everglades National Park and turning loose the Army Corps of Engineers to control floods--both of which seemed like saviors for the Glades. But neither turned out to be the answer. Working from the research he did for his book, The Swamp, Grunwald offers an account of what went wrong and the many attempts to fix it, beginning with Save Our Everglades, which Douglas declared was ""not nearly enough.""

Marya Repko delves into the story of Barron Collier; an entrepreneur whose investments in Florida early in the 1920's helped it become the place that it is today. After dropping out of high school at age 16, Collier went on to start a successful streetcar advertising business in New York City before turning his interests in Florida. He led numerous efforts to develop the Everglades swamps; building roads, hotels, and telephone systems, and attracting wealthy tourists to the region.

The Everglades was once reviled as a liquid wasteland, and Americans dreamed of draining it. Now it is revered as a national treasure, and Americans have launched the largest environmental project in history to try to save it. The Swamp is the stunning story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades, the saga of man's abuse of nature in southern Florida and his unprecedented efforts to make amends. Michael Grunwald, a prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, takes readers on a riveting journey from the Ice Ages to the present, illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America's most beguiling but least understood patches of land.