THE EVERGLADES NATIONAL Park in South Florida is one of the most fragile wildlands in the United States. Comprising freshwater and saltwater flows, open saw-grass prairies, coral reefs, and islands of pine, cypress, and mangrove forests, this 1.5-million-acre subtropical wilderness is home to ibis, roseate spoonbills, wood storks, manatees, the saltwater crocodile, and myriad other wildlife. The Everglades, along with the larger Everglades ecosystem, is also in serious trouble.

The century-old crusade to drain South Florida's swamps and convert water and grass into farmland and real estate has nearly destroyed this unique ecosystem, thought to be the largest freshwater marsh in the world. "The Everglades were treated as a commodity ... and developers reduced a natural work of art to a thing pedestrian and mundane," said Senator Bob Graham, the former Florida governor who began the Save the Everglades Campaign in 1983. Once encompassing more than 10,700 square miles, the Everglades...