I I lr4sTIluTEFOn SCientifiC IN f0t7MAT10N@ I 3501 MARKET ST, , PA 191Cd In Honor of , I Guardian of the [ Number 33 Auizust 14, 1989

This essay considers the life and work of Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890- ), an authority on the Everglades whose writings and advocacy have made her one of the most celebrated defenders of that subtropicalregion, Also discussedis a bronze sratue of a Ftorida panther by Philadelphia scufptor Eric Berg, which ISI@ has commissioned for installation in the Everglades NationaI Park.

Activism on behalf of the environment, tually, we visited the Everglades National at least on a broad scale, seems a relatively Park together, where I purchased her books. recent phenomenon. The late- 1960s’ ‘‘ecol- I then asked Len to arrange a meeting with ogy” movement, which probably reached his old tilend. The three of us met at her its height with the observance of Earth Day home in Coconut Grove last summer. in 1970, gave rise to a new popular con- When I spoke with this remarkable wom- sciousness of environmental issues. While an, she shared many insights into her own this consciousness may have waned at times life, the problems facing the Everglades and in succeeding years, there is no doubt that surrounding areas, education, politics, and in the late 1980s, with headlines being made a host of other topics. In tits essay, in honor by oil spills, toxic waste, polluted beaches, of Douglas, I’d like to describe briefly some- disappearing rain forests, and the green- thing of her life and work, present a few ex- house effect, concern for the environment cerpts from our conversation, and discuss has returned to the forefront as an intern- one small way in which ISI@ is helping to ational priority. pay tribute to the Everglades and those who For a few individuals, however, the con- have worked to save it. servation of nature has been a deeply felt, lifelong commitment, quite independent of The “Voice of the River” social trends or politicaf appeal. Last year I had the pleasure of meeting a woman who Douglas began her life far away from the has made conservation her lifework. She has subtropical region with which she has be- become celebrated for waging—almost sin- come so closely associated. She was born gle-handedly at times-a battle for a unique, in 1890 in Mimeapolis, Mimesota, and fragile, and irreplaceable ecosystem in the grew up near Boston, Massachusetts. In southeastern US. That woman is Marjory 1912, having majored in English, she was Stoneman Douglas, and the region that she graduated from Wellesley College, Massa- has dedicated much of her life to preserv- chusetts. Three years later, fleeing an un- ing is the Florida Everglades. happy marriage, she traveled to Florida to I had heard about Marjory Douglas for join her father, Frank Bryant Stoneman, several years from my friend Len Green- founder and editor of the Herald tield, former chairman of the Biology De- (Marjory’s parents had separated when she partment at the University of Miami. Even- was six). She became a reporter and cohsm-

223 nist, covering everything from society to the had little formrd scientific training-although plight of migrant workers. The pressures of a Wellesley course in what she refers to as constant newspaper deadlines took their toll “environmental geography” exerted a sig- on her health, however, and in 1925 she nificant influence on her thinking. “I ‘m just turned her talents to full-time fiction and a writer, ” she observed last summer dur- magazine writing. (Readers interested in a ing our talk. “I’m a writer first, Writing im- more complete account of Douglas’s life are plies research in a great many cases. If you directed to her autobiography, written to- want to write about something you have to gether with John Rothcbild, entitled Marjory know it thoroughly. And I was so fortunate, Stoneman Douglas: Voice of the River, pub- you see, in that the Everglades had not been lished in 1987.1) written about. Nobody had done the work In 1943 the editors of a book series on before. There were a couple of early pamp- American rivers approached Douglas to do hlets that were very inadequate, and that a book on the . Instead, she was all. So I did a lot of research nobody convinced them to let her write about the else had. I had to run around and talk to peo- Everglades. After nearly five years of re- ple who worked in it. I discovered the Ever- search and writing, 77re Everglades: River glades, you might say.”3 of Grass was published in 1947.2 Still in Unfortunately, in Florida’s boom days at print some 40 years later, the book is a rich the turn of the century, others had dis- work, describing centuries of natural and hu- covered the Everglades. The latter sections man history in a style that is as poetic as it of l%e Evergkdes: River of Grass describe is replete with factual detail. Douglas’s the begimings of the region’s slow demise masterstroke was the book’s three-word sub- at the hands of human ambition and heed- title, which cast the Everglades in a Iight that lessness. Under the leadership of developer few had chosen to see: not simply an inert Hamilton Disston and, later, Florida gov- swamp or marshland, but a moving, thriv- ernor Napolean Bonaparte Broward and ing ecosystem—a river, As she writes: numerous successors, programs were begun to dredge, drain, rechamel, and otherwise h stretches as it has always stretched, in coerce the wetlands into the capacity for one thick enormous curving river of grass, to the very end. This is the Everglades. more “profitable” uses. Concluding her It reaches one hundred miles from Lake book with a depressing chronicle of the ad- Okeechobee to the , fifty, vent of developers, farmers, and cattlemen sixty, even seventy miles wide. No one and the subsequent alteration and shrinkage has ever fought his way along its full of the Everglades, Douglas ends on a dim- length. Few have ever crossed the north- ern wilderness of nothing but grass. Down ly hopeful note, “Perhaps even in this last the atmost invisible slope the water moves, hour, ” she writes, “in a new relation of use- The grass stands. Where the grass and the fulness and beauty, the vast, subtle, and water are there is the heart, the current, unique region of the Everglades may not be the meaning of the Everglades, The grass and the water together make utterly lost.’ ‘z (p. 299) the river as simple as it is unique. There Even as Douglas was writing those words is no other river like it, Yet withhr that in 1947, however, the damage was worsen- simplicity, enclosed within the river and ing, as it would continue to worsen for the bordering and intruding on it from each next few decades. The concerns of devel- side, there is subtlety and diversity, a crowd of changing forms, of thrusting opment, population, and commerce pre- teeming life. And aft that becomes the vailed, and the US Army Corps of Engin&rs region of the Everglades. 2 (p. 5) embarked on a billion-dollar program of “flood control” that saw the constmction The achievement of the book is all the of 1,400 miles of canrds, levees, floodgates, more impressive considering that Douglas and pumps for the draining and development

224 of the wetlands. As writer Sue Douglas (no The Kissimmee Bosin// relation) notes in Oceans, environmentalists Everglades System point to this program as the greatest travesty Lake Kissimmee humankind ever worked against natured ‘Q The most notorious part of the Army proj- ect, by all accounts, was the straightening of the in the early 1960s. The Kissimmee, which had meandered 100 miles over a wide floodplain, carried water slowly southward to Lake Okeechobee, the main body of water in the Everglades. Along the route, the marsh grass served as a mtural filter, scrubbing pollutants from water that flowed down from Orlando and surrounding areas. The Corps ‘ “improvement” project consisted of diverting the river into a straight, 50-mile, 150- to 300-foot-wide canal that now speeds polluted water into the lake in just two days.d The marshlands, once home to a rich variety of wildlife, dried up. The cumulative effect, as writer Steven Yates detailed in Audubon magazine, has been to upset the fragile aquatic balance not ? only in the Everglades proper, but in the en- tire ecosystem of southern Florida, the sys- tem known as Kissimmee Basin&ake Okee- Em ‘i’simmeeRiverm FakahakheeStmnd~ chobee/Everglades, or KLOE for short. s (See map at right.) ~ %%xvation.mms ‘E21 R%l%ark :

Today, the original Everglades region is m %x%r%ts E21 ‘as’E’e@ad* j long gone—half of it drained for farmland, most of the rest kept unnaturally flooded for water storage. s Myriad problems—water in National Wildlife magazine, called for ac- levels, pollution, soil erosion, endangered quisition by the state of new land, more ef- wildliie, encroaching development—still im- fective management of the deer population peril the Everglades. Complex lines of con- and other wildlife, the restoration of the flict and alliance have been drawn between water flow across the Everglades, the pro- legislators, wientists, developers, engineers, tection of the endangered Florida panther bureaucrats, conservationists, and others— ~more on that later), and the dechameliza- all of whom have differing ideas on what’s ;ion of the Kissimmee River. The last of best for the region. hese goals moved toward fruition in a dem- There is, however, genuine cause for op- mstration projeet begiming in 1984, when timism. In August of 1983, Florida’s then- ;teel weirs, or dams, were installed to re- governor, Bob Graham, announced an un- route the water back onto the wetland precedented “Save the Everglades” pro- meanders of the Upper Kissimmee.6 gram. According to its architects, this am- Marjory Douglas, not surprisingly, has bitious plan would, by the year 2(M0, make been a major activist force behind the ef- the Everglades appear more like it did in fort to save the Everglades. “I have always 1900 than it does today.q The project, as been politicrd-you have to be, ” she ‘says. outlined by Florida writer Charles Flowers “When I was in college I was in one of the

225 early suffrage clubs. I worked for votes for women long before we had the right,”s In Florida, Douglas and others lobbied for the establishment of the Everglades NationaJ Park. The park was finally founded in 1947, the year 7he Everglades: River of Grass was published. Douglas spent the next years con- centrating on other writing projects, includ- ing Florida: l%e Long Frontier, published in 1967.7 She did not become active in the political fight to preserve the Everglades until the 1960s, when she joined the oppw sition to a proposed jetport in the park (the construction of which was subsequently abandoned).

Friends of the Everglades

Fellow conservationists urged her to form a grass-roots group. in 1970 she founded the Friends of the Everglades, a group devoted to the improvement of the Everglades and Pum (atifiiend) al the ISl@ Caring Cen:er for to the spreading of information through Children and Parents lobbying, speeches, and other avenues. . While her failing eyesight and hearing may have forced her from the day-to-day strug- of it. We have got to clean up Lake Okee- gle to save the region, she remains highly chobee and we have got to see to it that the involved as the most visible and celebrated continuous flow down the course of the champion of the Everglades. She spends Everglades is restored and that it is clean hours on the telephone every day. As park water. ”J superintendent Mike Finley told an inter- The dairy and sugar industries that viewer: “She has been the leader, the con- Douglas describes have become a powerful science, the rallying point.’ ‘g presence in the region, representing hun- And Douglas remains blunt in her opin- ireds of millions of dollars for the state. ions about the problems confronting the However, as she points out, preserving the Everglades. “Two important things have to Everglades is in the best interests of every- be done, and they can be done simukaneous- wre. “Eighty percent of our rainwater Iy. One is to restore the meanders of the :omes from the wet Everglades, ” she says, Kissimmee River. And we also have to stop “so we cannot let them dry up, because we the pollution of Lake Okeechobee by get- wouldn’t have any rainfall and we would be ting rid of the sugar people in the south and ~desert. So it’s very much to the advantage the dairy farmers in the north. The farmers >f the state to keep the Everglades going. ” return the water to the land with pesticides 4nd Marjory is pleased to acknowledge that and fertilizer in it, and they go into the Ever- word on the Everglades has gotten out. glades National Park and down into the “The general public is getting more and lower bay. The fertilizer gets into the water, nore alarmed about the possibilities of the and that is not good. It’s not good for the Everglades getting developed, ” she says. production of the small fish and the brackish “We have been able to educate the public. water, and I’m trying very much to get rid rhe maintenance of the KLOE system is a

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public project now. People know about it and talk about it.”3

The Florida Panther

In reading some of Douglas’s work, I was struck by her remark that there has never been a statue erected to commemorate the Florida panther. This Everglades predator, a subspecies of the puma, or mountain lion, is in grave danger of extinction. Fewer than 50 are thought to remain in the state.b Although an effort is under way to study and save the panther, the animal’s extremely elu- sive nature and the disrupted state of its food supply in the wild make for a very difficult undertaking. In our talk Douglas mentioned that a stat- ue of the Florida panther would serve as a fitting monument to Ernest F. Coe, a land- scape architect who, in 1928, conceived the Eugene G@eld and Marjory Stoneman idea of an . Coe, Douglas as Douglas explains in I’he Everglades: River of Grass, “talked and wrote and work is installed at ground level, and the argued and lectured and, as he said, ‘made puma is lying down, licking its front paw—a a nuisance of himself’ ‘‘ until the park was pose designed to invite children to play on approved.z (p. 294) His 20 years of effort and near the work (see photo on previous in creating the Everglades National Park, as page). For the Florida panther, however, Douglas told me, deserve a monument. Berg has chosen to render his subject in a With this in mind, I approached my stalking pose. friend, artist Eric Berg, who is noted for his “I decided, rather than to put him in a animal sculptures at the Philadelphia Zoo very formal, statuary kind of stance, to give and elsewhere. As I have mentioned in ear- a sense of the character of the creature, ” lier essays, Berg created the bronze puma says Berg. “The work will be a complete, at the ISI@ Caring Center for Children and proportional representation, giving all the Parents.g He was fascinated by the idea of presence of the animal, but still conveying sculpting a Florida panther. After consul- a sense that it’s a stalking cat—that he’s a tation with Douglas and with park authori- predator, and that he’s good at what he does. ties, the work was approved. Berg is now Let me put it this way: you wouldn’t want in the midst of creating a life-size, bronze to be his prey. ” 10 Berg is currently com- sculpture of the Florida panther-a close rel- pleting the Styrofoam core of the sculpture, ative of the puma he rendered for 1S1. I had which provides a rough shape of what will told Marjory about our puma statue, and in be the finished work. A thin layer of clay a subsequent visit I presented her with a min- will be placed on the core, so that external iature replica (see photo above), features such as ears, eyes, musculature, and For the puma sculpture, which is placed fir texture can be rendered in detail. A prominently in the playground at the Car- series of molds will then be created, allow- ing Center, Berg had purposely selected a ing the work to be cast in bronze. The fin- benign, nonthreatening pose for the cat. The ished sculpture, which will weigh between

227 400 and 500 pounds, wilJ be installed in ear- she shot back. “Oh no! I’m not tired. I’m ly 1990 at the Royal Palm Visitors Center old, but I’m not tired. ”q in the Everglades National Park. After we discussed the panther sculpture, Douglas, while passionate about memo- I asked Douglas what she would like her rials for her colleagues, displays little inter- own memorial to be. She replied, “Do you est in tributes to herself. Tributes, however, remember the Latin tJtat says, ‘Si nrcmumen- seem to keep coming her way. Last January tum requin”s, circurnspice’-’If you seek his Ms. magazine selected Marjory as one of its monument, look around’? That’s my mot- six women of the year. 1I Esquire magazine to.”3 Nevertheless, I look forward to cele- also recently featured her in its annual col- brating Marjory’s 100th birthday next year lection of noteworthy women. Iz In May, at at the dedication of the memorird she in- a fund-raising reception marking her 99th spired. birthday, she was made an honorary vice president of the Sierra Club. She continues to speak and work on behalf of the Ever- ***** glades. Marjory is also busily editing the manuscript of her biography of W. H. Hud- son, the British author and naturalist. At the My thanks to C.J. Fiscus, La Green$eld, outset of our talk last summer, I somewhat and Christopher King for their help in the naively expressed concern that our interview preparation of this essay. might be too tiring for her. “I’m not tired, ” . ,.=V,~r

REFERENCES

1. Douglas M S & Rothchild J. MarjoryS(onemanDouglas: voice of the river. Englewaxl, FL: Pineapple Press, 1987.268 p. 2. Douglas M S. 7he Everglades: river of grass. St. Simons Island, GA: Mockingbird Books, 1947.308 p. 3, ------Personal communication. June 1988. 4, Douglas S. Save the Everglades: making amends for past insults. Oceans 18:3-9, March 1985. 5. Yates S. Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the Glades crusade. Audubon 85:113-27, 1983. 6. Ffowers C. Starting over in the Everglades. Naf. Wi&il~e23:54-62, April-May 1985, 7. Douglas M S. Florida: the long fionrier. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.307 p. 8. Murphy B. Woman, 99, keeps watch on Everglades. Bucks County Courier fimes 5 July 1989, p. B20, 9. Gafileld E. Child care: an investment in the future. Part 2. The 1S1 Caring Center for Children and Parents. Essays of an information sciersrisr. Philadelphia: 1S1 Press, 1984, vol. 6. p. 38-46. 10. Berg E. Personal cornrnutrication, 30 June 1989. 11. Gladstone V. Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Ms. 17(4):68-71, January-February 1989. 12. Women we love ... women we don’t. Esquire 112(2):86-102, August 1989.

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