Everglades Foundation celebrates 30 years of protecting Florida’s national treasure

The fight for the Everglades is a long and ongoing battle, but on Thursday night, the Everglades Foundation and its supporters took a moment to celebrate 30 years.

They looked back on all the progress made while pinpointing where we need to go from here to protect our future.

The Everglades are the heart of Florida’s environment. “This is a national treasure right here in our own backyard,” said Eric Eikenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation.

It is a treasure that Eikenberg says has been in poor health for years. “We have a plumbing problem. Lake Okeechobee rises today. The only option is to open the gates, east and west, and billions of gallons of polluted water goes to the Caloosahatchee to the southwest coast of this state.”

A true snapshot of old Florida, whose cry for help is shown in the fish kills, loss of jobs, and threats to human health.

“So the crisis is the way we’re managing water today. Everglades restoration redirects the flow of water on the Florida peninsula, recharges the drinking supply for a third of the population, and it protects the economy,” said Eikenberg.

While we have a long way to go, the Everglades Foundation spent Thursday night celebrating the battles they have won so far. battle like the groundbreaking of a reservoir south of Lake Okeechobee that will send more water down to Florida Bay and Clyde Butcher, whose photographs of the Everglades inspired love, appreciation, and protection of the Everglades.

“If we can’t save the Everglades, we can’t save the world,” said Butcher.

Thursday’s event raised $1.4 million for Everglades restoration.

Butcher is known for his photos in black and white, but there’s more color to his story. “When I was growing up, my mother had a hard time finding me. I’d be out in the woods somewhere.”

Although he had a lifelong lover of the outdoors, it took him a little while to warm up to the Florida landscape.

“There was nothing photograph. It was just dead dark blah,” said Butcher. “I came here, and photographers were doing birds and gators. You can go to the zoo and do that.”

After a while, his eyes were opened to the state’s true beauty. He realized he had to get out of the car and go hunting for it. “You have to get into it. You can’t see it from afar.”

Nearly four decades later, his photography career is bringing the Everglades into focus for many. His influence and images are seared into wildlife photographer Mac Stone’s mind forever.

“The Everglades was like this, this like homeland, it was like this, this the sanctuary. And only way I got to know it was through Clyde’s photographs. So when I was growing up, I would look at Clyde’s photographs. And that was the inspiration for me to come down and see this place for my very first time,” said Stone, an Everglades Foundation board member.

Stone describes Butcher as a pioneer, and not just for the way he brought these massive cameras into “difficult to navigate” areas.

“He gave us permission to love these places that other people hated and wanted to stay away from. He romanticized the swamps here. Romanticize the cypress here, romanticize the mangroves. And he really celebrated what is real Florida. And for me, that was, like, that’s number one. Because to speak a language that is inherently Floridian, I think, is truly unique and is really a treasure,” Stone said.

His favorite Clyde Butcher photo is called “Moonrise.”

“It’s this bowl of clouds that are that’s holding up this moon as it’s rising or it’s setting. And it’s over these dwarf cypress and dwarf cypress are uniquely in the southern Everglades. And you could tell he was up high because he’s up above the cypress. And I remember seeing that photo. And it’s forever been my favorite photo.”