Little Shakir runs enthusiastically over the boardwalk of the so-called Anhinga Trail. Alligators, fish, birds in the most diverse colors and shapes, he diligently counts with a counter.
He has already counted nineteen, nineteen animals in the first ten minutes of the hike. The Everglades in southern Florida are known for their biodiversity.
“I don’t want to spoil the fun of Yosemite for you,” explains park ranger Barbara Hedges, “but the Everglades are not one of those national parks that have become famous just for their theatrical appearance, this region is really something special.”
An early activist
The largest subtropical area in the USA, which is home to more than 300 different animal species, and whose huge river course is decisive for the freshwater supply of the entire region, that would almost not have existed if it weren’t for: Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
“She was an icon, that’s why they named the school after her,” explain Barbara and Dave at the Everglades Visitor Center.
We are talking about the Parkland Florida school whose students started a national movement for stricter gun laws after a school shooting killed 17 and injured 17 others – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High-School.
With their commitment, students like Emma González, Sarah Chadwick and their classmates David Hogg and Cameron Kasky have managed to put the issue of stricter gun laws at the top of the national political agenda.
“At first we were sad, but that changed, now the name Marjory Stoneman Douglas is associated not with tragedy but with political resistance.”
“She would like that.”
Orchids, snails, royal palms
With a steady gaze and a smart smile, the experienced park ranger talks about a group of political activists, including Stoneman Douglas. In the early 20th century, they took on a resourceful entrepreneur who had the idea of laying railroad tracks across the Anhinga Trail and what is now the nature reserve. The railway line would later become part of US One, the largest highway in the USA.
“When he wanted to have the railway line built, there were these activists in the 20th century who said: no, it’s beautiful here, we have the native royal palms, we have rare orchids, we have rare species of snails – let’s do that So in 1916 they made sure this was Florida’s first state protected park.”
It was then called Royal Palms State Park and was still comparatively small. But it became the nucleus of what would later become Everglades National Park.
As a journalist at the Miami Herald
“And guess who founded Royal Palms State Park? It was the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs. It was a lot of hard-working and far-sighted women who we can thank for making this not Highway One today. With t-shirt shops and shell shops next door.”
It was the first milestone for the Everglades and for Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Actually, the “Mother of the Everglades”, born in Minnesota in 1890, ended up in Florida for a job as a journalist and for the Miami Herald – at the age of 25.
Unique ecosystem – and important water reservoir
At the same time, she took up the political fight for a whole range of issues that were quite unpopular at the time: Against racism, for example, and for equal rights for women. As part of the suffragette movement, she fought for women’s suffrage, even before she became a key figure in the US environmental movement in the mid-19th century. In 1947, she dispelled the myth that the Everglades were nothing more than a swamp and published her book Everglades: River of Grass.
“That made short work of the idea that the Everglades were a swamp.”
Explains park ranger Barbara. They actually consist of a river. A 15 mile wide, very long, shallow river with grassy vegetation.
“Without the Everglades, the water supply would collapse throughout South Florida. Stoneman Douglas was one of the first to understand this. With her book, she fought for the preservation of an ecosystem that was already unique to her at the time. However, the book is by no means her greatest merit been.”
“She wrote this book in 1947, but her real career started when she was 79 years old! That’s when she started the group Friends of the Everglades. And there were plans to build a huge airport right here. It was supposed to be the biggest airport in the world. And next to that they wanted to build a city that would have 25,000 people. You can imagine what that would have done: it would have destroyed the Everglades and also the Big Cypress Conservation Area which is right next door. So at 79 she Years ago all these people mobilized, they organized themselves and together they stopped this airport.”
Battle won for nature
Today, the Everglades are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And as an international biosphere reserve, a model region for ecologically, socially and economically sustainable development.
“A lot of people take what we have for granted,” says Dave of the Everglades Visitor Center.
“Like the many beautiful national parks. They forget who worked for it and what time, what effort they put into it. It’s like a gift that they left us, it’s their legacy that they take on pass on to us.”
In the decades-long struggle against corporate and lobby interests, Stoneman Douglas ultimately won. She died in Florida in 1998 at the age of 108. Less than an hour’s drive from the Everglades, the students at her named high school are now living in their tradition as political activists.