Sugar operations are actually expanding there, despite a $1.5 billion federal programme to buy back Everglades land being used for sugar production.
The new Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area brings together multiple state and federal government agencies, private conservation groups like The Nature Conservancy and local ranchers.
CERP, the 20-year Everglades project, is budgeted at over $8 billion from state and federal sources including the national Water Restoration Development Act.
The state has already spent nearly $2 billion on Everglades restoration and has another $880 million Everglades water pollution cleanup plan in the works.
In 2001, Bush, after consulting with his environmental regulators, had committed the state to an aggressive goal set by the Everglades Forever Act: in five years, phosphorus in the swamp would be reduced to its natural level, no higher than ten parts per billion.
"The ecological system is in a state of near-total collapse," claims John Marshall, a green activist.Enter the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), which was signed in December 2000, at the last gasp of the Clinton administration.
The Everglades are a natural region of tropical wetlands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large watershed.
We're here at ground zero for the unmitigated development bubble and the inevitable housing crash, where 'planning' is a four letter word, where there is constant threat to build over the everglades and drill offshore, where gambling and out-of-control development is substituted for a state income tax, and where the Lotto pays for public education.
Everglades National Park, four miles west of Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center, which is at 40001 State Road, on Route 9336.
Next stop: Everglade City.
"The Everglades are very beautiful, but America did rule out building roads through them to connect Miami with other parts of Florida," says Mr Minev of Amazonas state.
