Why everglades are important

Survey Manual. Nine main habitats categorize the park: Hardwood hammocks are dense regions of shade trees with overlapping leaves. Pinelands or pine rocklands are forested areas that often take root in exposed limestone substrate and depend on fire to clear out the faster-growing hardwoods that block out the light from pine seedlings.

To ensure pine seedlings have enough sunlight and space to grow, the park uses prescribed burns to mimic natural fire pattern, keeping the areas healthy. Mangroves are groups of salt-tolerant, partially submerged trees with sturdy root systems. Everglades National Park is home to the largest contiguous stand of protected mangroves in the western hemisphere. Mangroves are valuable to the ecosystem because their strong root-like structures help absorb strong wave energy from incoming storms and act as a carbon sink, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Salt-tolerant communities thrive in the varying salinity levels of the lowlands with a large number of succulents and other low-growing, desert-like plants. Freshwater Marl Prairies are characterized by diverse low-growing vegetation and look very similar to freshwater sloughs although the sawgrass is not as tall and the water not as deep. Cypress trees are deciduous conifers that can survive in standing water. In the Florida Everglades, it is common to find the trees clustered in the shape of a dome with larger trees in the middle and smaller trees around, growing in linear shapes parallel with water flow, or thinly distributed on drier land in poor soil dwarf cypresses.

Marine and estuarine places where freshwater meets the sea habitats contain the largest body of water within Everglades National Park is Florida Bay, an area square miles wide with submerged vegetation. Here, seagrass and algae form the base of the food chain.

Within the estuarine environment of the Everglades are commercially and recreationally important fish, crustaceans, and mollusks that impact the health of the national park and beyond. Everglades National Park is known for its great animal biodiversity, including endemic species, meaning species not found anywhere else.

Animal species in the park range include a large number of federally endangered, threatened, and invasive species.

During the dry months, wading birds congregate here to feed and nest, and in the summer, the mangroves provide the first line of erosion defense against the winds and waves of tropical storms and hurricanes. This site remains in virtually the same condition as it did during the Cold War.

Park visitors can take guided tours of the base and occasionally meet soldiers who were stationed there during the conflict with the Soviet Union.

Learn more about Nike Missile tours. The park and the pristine blue water that encompasses its southern boundary will one day enjoy a virtually endless supply of clean, fresh water as a result of Everglades restoration. There is a lot more to discover at Everglades National Park! Check out these interesting facts about this vast and unique national park: 1. Photo by Glenn Nagel www. An aerial view of the Everglades backcountry. Photo by National Park Service.

One of the many animals that live in the Everglades, Alligators move three different ways on land. They high walk, belly walk and belly run. Since the s, water diversions and flood-control projects have severed the flow of water between different parts of the Everglades, while large areas of its lands were converted to agricultural or residential areas.

The re-plumbing of the Everglades has resulted in a system where the health of critical coastal estuaries are at risk. At times, too much polluted water is pumped to both coasts from Lake Okeechobee, while too little freshwater flows south to the Everglades and Florida Bay. Lucie estuaries on the east and west coasts.

We can solve these problems by recreating natural flows of clean water south to the Everglades National Park and Florida Bay. To restore the Everglades, the National Wildlife Federation works to:. A critical piece of restoring the Everglades is to construct a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee.

Lucie and Caloosahatchee estuaries by taking up water from Lake Okeechobee that is currently damaging the east and west coasts. The reservoir will store and treat water before sending it south to the Everglades National Park and Florida Bay, where it is needed most. In , the Florida Legislature passed a bill to accelerate planning and provide half the funding for the construction of a reservoir in the Everglades Agricultural Area.

Land conversion and drainage are mostly to blame for the declining health of the Everglades, but there are other variables as well. Climate change, including rainfall, increased sea-levels and higher temperatures contribute as well At one time, the Everglades ecosystem covered 11 million acres. Through the years, land conversion and drainage projects impacted the wetlands, vastly decreasing its size to slightly over 2 million acres.

Today, there are still a wide range of man-made and natural threats to the health of the Everglades. Fires, hurricanes, floods, even droughts contribute to damage along with pollution, land development and the ongoing effort to reduce coastal flooding.