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So I've had the great privilege
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of traveling to some incredible places,
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photographing these distant landscapes
and remote cultures
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all over the world.
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I love my job.
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People think it's this
string of epiphanies
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and sunrises and rainbows.
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When in reality,
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it looks more something like this.
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(Laughter)
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This is my office.
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We can't afford the fanciest places
to stay at night,
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so we tend to sleep a lot outdoors,
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as long as we can stay dry,
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that's a bonus.
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We also can't afford
the fanciest restaurants.
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So we tend to eat whatever's on
the local menu.
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And if you're in the Ecuadorian Paramo,
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you're going to eat a large rodent
called a Cuy.
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(Laughter)
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What makes our experiences, perhaps,
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a little bit different
and a little more unique
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than that of the average person
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is that we have this gnawing thing
in the back of our mind
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that even in our darkest moments,
in those times of despair,
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we think, "Hey, there might be
an image to be made here,
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there might be a story to be told."
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And why is storytelling important?
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It helps us connect with our cultural
and our natural heritage.
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And in the Southeast,
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there's an alarming disconnect
between the public
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and the natural areas that allow
us to be her win the first place.
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We're visual creatures,
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so we use what we see
to teach us what we know.
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Now the majority of us
aren't going to go
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way down into a swamp.
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So how can we expect those same people
to advocate
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on behalf of their protection?
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We can't.
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My job, then, is to use photography
as a communication tool
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to help bridge the gap
between the science and the aesthetics.
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To get people talking,
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to get them thinking,
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and to hopefully, ultimately,
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to get them caring.
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I started doing this 15 years ago
right here in Gainesville,
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right here in my backyard,
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and I fell in love with
adventure and discovery.
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Going to explore
all these different places
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that were just minutes from
my front door step.
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There's a lot of
beautiful places to find.
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Despite all these years that have passed,
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I still see the world through the eyes
of a child
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and I try to incorporate
that sense of wonderment
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and that sense of curiosity
into my photography
-
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as often as I can.
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And we're pretty lucky
because here in the South,
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we're still blessed with a relatively
blank canvas
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that we can fill with
the most fanciful adventures
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and incredible experiences.
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It's just a matter of how far
our imagination will take us.
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See, a lot of people look at this
and think,
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"Oh wow, that's a pretty tree."
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But I don't just see a tree,
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I look at this and I see opportunity.
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I see an entire weekend.
-
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Because when I was a kid,
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these were the types of images
that got me off the sofa
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and dared me to explore,
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dared me to go find the woods
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and put my head underwater
and see what we have.
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And folks, I've been photographing
all over the world
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and I promise you,
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what we we have here,
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what we have in the Sunshine State
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rivals anything else that I've seen.
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But yet out tourism industry is busy
promoting all the wrong things.
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Before most kids are 12,
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they'll have been to Disney World
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more times than they've been
in a canoe
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or camping under a starry sky.
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And I have nothing against Disney
or Mickey,
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I used to go there, too.
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But they're missing out on those
fundamental connections
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that create a real sense of pride
and ownership
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for the place that they call home.
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And this is compounded by the issue
that the landscapes
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that define our natural heritage
and fuel our aquifer for our drinking water
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have been deemed as scary and dangerous
and spooky.
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See, when our ancestors first came here,
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they warned, "Stay out of these areas,
they're haunted.
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They're full of evil spirits and ghosts."
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I don't know where they came up
with that idea.
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But it's actually led to
a very real disconnect,
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a very real negative mentality
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that has kept the public disinterested,
silent,
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and ultimately, our environment at risk.
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We're a state that's surrounded
and defined by water.
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And for centuries,
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swamps and wetlands have been regarded
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as these obstacles to overcome.
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And so we've treated them as
second-class ecosystems
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because they have
very little monetary value
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and of course, they're known
to harbor alligators and snakes,
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which I'll admit, these aren't
the most cuddly of ambassadors.
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(Laughter)
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So it became assumed, then, that
the only good swamp
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was a drained swamp.
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And in fact, draining a swamp
to make way
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for agriculture and development
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was considered the very essence
of conservation
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not too long ago.
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And now we're backpedaling,
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because the more we come to learn
about these silent landscapes,
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the more secrets we're starting
to unlock
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about interspecies relationships
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and the connectivity of habitats,
watersheds and flyways.
-
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Take this bird, for example:
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This is the prothonotary warbler.
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I love this bird because
it's a swamp bird,
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through and through,
a swamp bird.
-
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They nest and they mate and they breed
in these old grown (?) swamps
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in these flooded forests.
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And so after the spring,
after they raise their young,
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they then fly thousand of miles
over the Gulf of Mexico
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into Central and South America.
-
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And then after the winter,
spring rolls around
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and they come back.
-
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They fly thousands of miles
over the Gulf of Mexico.
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And where do they go,
where do they land?
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Right back in the same tree.
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That's nuts.
-
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This is a bird the size
of a tennis ball.
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I mean, that's crazy.
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I used a GPS to get here today,
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and this is my hometown.
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(Laughter)
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That's crazy.
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So what happens, then, when this bird
flies over the Gulf of Mexico
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and into Central America for the winter
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and then the spring rolls around
and it flies back,
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and it comes back to this:
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A freshly salted golf course.
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This is a narrative that's
all too commonly unraveling
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here in this state.
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And this is a natural process
that's occurred for thousands of years
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and we're just now learning about it.
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So you can imagine all else we have
to learn about these landscapes
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if we just preserve them first.
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And despite all this rich life
that abounds in these swamps,
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they still have a bad name.
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Many people feel uncomfortable
with the idea of wadding
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in Florida's black water.
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I can understand that.
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But what I loved about growing up
in the Sunshine State
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that for so many of us,
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we leave with this latent,
but very palpable fear
-
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that when we put our toes into the water,
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there might be something much more ancient
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and much more adapted than we are.
-
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Knowing that you're not top dog
is a welcomed discomfort, I think.
-
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How often in this modern and urban
and digital age
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do you actually have the chance
to feel vulnerable,
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or consider that the world may not
have been made for just us?
-
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So for the last decade,
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I began seeking out these areas
where the concrete yields to forest
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and the pines turn to cyprus
-
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and I viewed all these mosquitos
and reptiles,
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all these discomforts,
-
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as affirmations that I'd found
true wilderness,
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and I embraced them wholly.
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Now as a conservation photographer
obsessed with black water,
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it's only fitting that I'd eventually
end up
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in the most famous swamp of all:
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The Evergaldes.
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Growing up here, in North-Central Florida,
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I'd always had these enchanted names,
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places like Loxahatchee and Fakahatchee,
-
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Corkscrew and Big Cypress.
-
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I started what turned
into a five-year project
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to hopefully reintroduce the Everglades
in a new light,
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in a more inspired light.
-
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But I knew this was going to be
a tall order
-
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because here you have an area
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that's roughly a third the size
the state of Florida, it huge.
-
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And when I saw Everglades,
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people are like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah
the national park."
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But the Everglades is not just a park,
-
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it's a watershed, an entire watershed.
-
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It's started with the Kissimmee
chain of lakes in the north
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and then as the rains would fall
during the summer, these downpours,
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it would flow into Lake Okeechobee,
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and Lake Okeechobee would fill up
and it would overflow its banks
-
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and spill southward, every slowly
with the topography
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and get into the river of grass,
the Sawgrass Prairies,
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before moving into the Cypress Slews
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until going further south into
the Mangrove swamps
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until finally, finally reaching
Florida Bay,
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the emerald gem of the Everglades,
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the great estuary,
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850 square-mile estuary.
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So sure, the national park is
the southern end of this system,
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but all the things that make it unique
are these inputs that come in,
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the fresh water that starts
100 miles north.
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So no (longer) are these political
or invisible boundaries
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protect the park from polluted water
or insufficient water.
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And unfortunately, that's precisely
what we've done.
-
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Over the last 60 years,
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we have drained, we have dammed,
we have dredged the Everglades
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to where now only one third
that used to reach the bay
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now reaches the bay today.
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So this story is not all
sunshine and rainbows, unfortunately.
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For better or for worse,
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the story of the Everglades
is intrinsically tied
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to the peaks and the valleys
of mankind's relationship
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with the natural world.
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But I'll show you these beautiful pictures
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because it gets you on-board.
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And while I have your attention,
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I can tell you the real story,
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is that we're taking this,
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and we're trading it for this,
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at an alarming rate.
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But what's lost on so many people
-
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is the sheer scale of what
we're discussing.
-
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Because the Everglades is not
just responsible
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for the drinking water
for 7 million Floridians,
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today is also provide agricultural fields
-
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for the year-round tomatoes
and oranges for over 300 million Americans.
-
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And it's that same seasonal pulse
of water in the summer
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that built the river of grass
6,000 years ago.
-
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Ironically, today, is also responsible
for the over half a million acres
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of endless river of sugarcane.
-
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These same fields that are responsible
for dumping
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exceedingly high levels of fertilizers
into the watershed
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are changing the system.
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But in order for you guys not just
to understand how this system works,
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but to also get personally connected to it,
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I decided to break the story
down
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into several different narratives,
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and I wanted that story to start
in Lake Okeechobee,
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the beating heart of
the Everglade system.
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And to do that,
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I picked an ambassador,
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an iconic speices.
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Now, this is the Everglade Snail Kite.
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It's a great bird,
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and they used to nest in the thousands,
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thousands,
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in the northern Everglades.
-
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And then they've gone down
to about 400 nesting pairs today.
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And why is that?
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Well, it's because they eat
one source of food,
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an Apple Snail,
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about the size of a ping-pong ball,
an aquatic gastropod.
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So as we starting damming up
the Everglades,
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as we started diking
Lake Okeechobee
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and draining the wetlands,
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we lost the habitat for the snail,
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and thus, the populate of the Kites declined.
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And so, I wanted a photo that would
not only communicate this relationship
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between wetland, snail and bird,
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but I also wanted a photo
that would communicate
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how incredible this relationship was
-
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and how very important it is
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that they've come to depend on each other,
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this healthy wetland and this bird.
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And to do that, I brainstormed
this idea,
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I started sketching out these plans
to make a photo.
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And I sent it to a wildlife biologist
down in Okeechobee --
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and this is an endangered bird,
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so it takes special permission to do.
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And so I built this submerged platform
that would hold snails
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just right under the water.
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And I spent months planning
this crazy idea.
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And I took this platform down to
Lake Okeechobee
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and I spent a week in the water,
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waiting waist-deep,
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9-hour shifts from dawn until dusk,
-
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waiting to get one image
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that I thought might communicate this.
-
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And here's the day that I finally worked:
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Video:
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"After setting up the platform,
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I look off and I see a Kite coming
off of the cattails,
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and I see him flying and searching.
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And he gets right over the trap,
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and I see that he's seen it,
-
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and he goes straight for the trap.
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And in that moment, all those months
of planning, waiting,
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all the sunburn, mosquito bites,
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they're all worth it.
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Oh my gosh,
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I can't believe it."
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You can believe how excited I was
when that happened.
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But what the idea was is that for someone
whose never seen this bird
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and has no reason to care about it,
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the idea is that these photos,
these new perspectives
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will help shed a little new light on
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just one species that makes
this watershed so incredible,
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so valuable, so important.
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Now, I know I can't come
here to Gainesville
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and talk to you about animals
and the Everglades
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without talking to you about gators.
-
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I love gators, I grew up
loving gators.
-
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My parents always said that I had
an unhealthy relationship with gators.
-
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But what I like about them is that
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they're like the fresh water equivalent
to sharks.
-
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They're feared, they're hated,
-
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and they're tragically misunderstood.
-
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Because these are a unique species,
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they're not just apex predators.
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In the Everglades,
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they are the very architects
of the Everglades,
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because as the water drops down
in the winter
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during the dry season,
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they start excavating these holes
called gator holes.
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And they do this because
as the water drops down,
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they'll be able to stay wet and they'll
be able to forge.
-
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And now this isn't just affecting them,
-
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other animals also depend
on this relationship,
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so they become a keystone species
as well.
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So how do you make an apex predator,
and ancient reptile,
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at once look like it dominates the system,
but at the same time,
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look vulnerable?
-
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Well, you wave into a pit
of about 120 of them,
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then you hope that you've made
the right decision.
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(Laughter)
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I still have all my fingers, it's cool.
-
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But I understand,
-
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I know I'm not going to rally you guys,
-
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I'm not going to rally the troops to,
"Save the Everglades for the gators!"
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It won't happen because
they're so ubiquitous,
-
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we see them now,
-
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they're one of the great
conservation success stories
-
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of the US.
-
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But there is one species in the Everglades
-
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that no matter who you are,
-
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you can't help but love to,
-
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and that's Roseate Spoonbill.
-
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These birds are great,
-
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but they've had a really tough time
in the Everglades
-
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because they started out with thousands
of nesting pairs in Florida Bay.
-
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And at the turn of the 20th century,
-
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they got down to two -- two nesting pairs.
-
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And why?
-
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That's because women thought they
looked better on their hats
-
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then they did flying in the sky.
-
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Then we banned the plume trade,
we banned it,
-
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and their numbers started rebounding.
-
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And as their numbers started rebounding,
-
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scientists began to pay attention,
-
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they started studying these birds.
-
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They started studying these birds.
-
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And what they found out is that
these birds behavior
-
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is intrinsically tied to the annual draw-down
cycle of water in the Evergaldes,
-
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the thing that defines
the Everglades watershed.
-
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What they found out is that
these birds started nesting in the winter
-
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as the water drew down
-
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because they're tactile feeders,
-
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they have to touch whatever they eat.
-
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And so they wait for these
concentrated pools of fish
-
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to be able to feed enough
to feed their young.
-
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So these birds became
the very icon of the Everglades,
-
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an indicator species of the overall health
of the system.
-
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And just as their numbers
were rebounding in the mid-20th century,
-
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shooting up to 900, 1,000,
11,000, 12,000.
-
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Just as that started happening,
-
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we started draining
the southern Everglades.
-
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And we stopped two thirds of that water
moving south.
-
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And it had drastic consequences.
-
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And just as those numbers
started reaching their peak,
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unfortunately, today,
the real spoonbill story,
-
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the real photo of what it looks like
is more something like this.
-
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Now we're down to less than
70 nesting pairs in Florida today
-
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because we've disrupted
the system so much.
-
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So all these different organizations
are shouting, they're screaming,
-
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"The Everglades are fragile,
they're frágile."
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It is not.
-
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It is resilient.
-
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Because despite all we've taken,
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despite all we've done and we've drained
and we've dammed
-
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and we've dredged it,
-
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they're still here,
waiting to be put back together.
-
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And this is what I've loved about
South Florida is that
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in one place, you have this
unstoppable force of mankind
-
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meeting the immovable object
of tropical nature.
-
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And it's at this new frontier
that we're forced with this new appraisal:
-
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What is wilderness worth?
-
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What is the value of biodiversity
or our drinking water?
-
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And fortunately, after decades of debate,
-
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we're finally starting to act
on those questions.
-
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We're slowly undertaking these projects
-
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to bring more freshwater
back to the bay.
-
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But it's up to us as citizens,
as residents, as stewards
-
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to hold our elected officials
to their promises.
-
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What can you do to help?
-
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It's so easy.
-
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Just go outside.
-
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Get out there.
-
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Take your friends out,
take your kids out,
-
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take your family out.
-
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Hire a fishing guide.
-
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Show the state that protecting wilderness
-
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not only makes ecological sense,
but economic sense as well.
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It's a lot of fun,
just do it -- put your feet in the water.
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The swamp will change you, I promise.
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Over the years, we've been so generous
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with these other landscapes
around the country,
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cloaking them with this American pride,
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places that we now consider to define us:
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The Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Yellowstone.
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And we use these parks
and these natural areas
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as these beacons and these
cultural compasses.
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And sadly, the Everglades is very commonly
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left out of that conversation.
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But I believe it's every bit as iconic
and emblematic
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of who we are as a country
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as any of these other wildernesses.
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It's just a different kind of wild.
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But I'm encouraged,
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because maybe we're finally
starting to come around.
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Because what was once deemed
this swampy wasteland,
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today is a World Heritage site.
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It's a wetland of
international importance.
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And we've come a long way
in the last 60 years.
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And as the world's largest
and most ambitious
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wetland restoration project,
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the international spotlight
is on us in the Sunshine State.
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Becayse if we can heal this system,
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it's going to become an icon
for wetland restoration
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all over the world.
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But it's up to us to decide
which legacy
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we want to attach our flag to.
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They say that the Everglades
is our greatest test.
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If we pass it, we get to keep
the planet.
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I love that quote,
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because it's a challenge,
it's a prod,
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can we do it, will we do it?
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We have to, we must.
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But the Everglades is not just a test,
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it's also a gift,
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and ultimately, our responsibility.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)