This Everglades National Park map is a handy way to quickly find locations in the park. The pull down lookup menu has Everglades features such as Canoe waterways, campgrounds, reefs, keys, mangroves, visitor centers, and other points that can be zoomed to. Popular back country campgrounds, and trail locations can be easily found. All Everglades campsite and trail locations are indexed so you can easily find the sites that you want to locate with the menu.


Development In The Everglades

Water in south Florida once flowed freely from the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee and southward over low-lying lands to the estuaries of Biscayne Bay, the Ten Thousand Islands, and Florida Bay. This shallow, slow-moving sheet of water covered almost 11,000 square miles, creating a mosaic of ponds, sloughs, sawgrass marshes, hardwood hammock, and forested uplands. For thousands of years this intricate system evolved into a finely balanced ecosystem that formed the biological infrastructure for the southern half of the state.

Early colonial settlers and land developers viewed the Everglades as a worthless swamp in need of reclamation. The dream of draining the swampland took hold in the first half of the 1800s. By the 1880s developers started digging drainage canals, which took place without an understanding of the dynamics of the ecosystem and were generally inadequate for the task. They caused localized silting problems, but overall the ecosystem was resilient enough to sustain itself.

The notion of draining the vast wetland persisted. Expanded dredging efforts between 1905 and 1910 transformed large tracts from wetland to agricultural land. This abundance of "new" land stimulated the first of several south Florida land booms. Railroads constructed by entrepreneurs like Henry B. Plant and Henry M. Flagler made the region more accessible and attractive to tourists. By the 1920s visitors and new residents flocked to blossoming towns like Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Fort Myers. As they arrived, developers cut more canals and built new roads. To ensure good ocean views, they removed mangroves from the shorelines and replaced them with palm trees. Little by little canals, roads, and buildings displaced native habitats.

The year 1948 marked an even greater change when Congress authorized the Central and South Florida Project. This involved the construction of an elaborate system of roads, canals, levees, and water-control structures stretching throughout South Florida. Constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers, and sponsored by the Central and Southern Flood Control District (later redesignated the South Florida Water Management District), the project purposes were to provide water and flood protection for urban and agricultural lands, a water supply for Everglades National Park, the preservation of fish and wildlife habitat, facilitate navigation and recreation, and the prevention of salt water intrusion. While the project still provides many of the intended benefits, the alteration of regional wetland areas, estuaries, and bays Ñ combined with increasing population pressures and changing land uses Ñ has significantly degraded the natural system.

Today 50% of south FloridaÕs original wetland areas no longer exist. The numbers of wading birds, such as egrets, herons, and ibises, have been reduced by 90%. Entire populations of animals, including the manatee, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, the Miami blackheaded snake, the wood stork, and the Florida panther, are at risk of disappearing. Exotic pest plants such as melaleuca, Brazilian pepper, and Australian pine have invaded natural areas, choking out native plants and altering habitats. Massive die-offs of seagrass beds in Florida Bay have been followed by the extensive losses of wading birds, fish, shrimp, sponges, and mangroves. These grim indicators warn of a system under assault and in jeopardy of collapse.



Conservation Efforts


The harmful side effects of dredging and draining were apparent early in this century. In 1928 landscape architect Ernest Coe began a concentrated effort to designate a "Tropical Everglades National Park." His persistence paid off when he and others persuaded Congress to designate the Everglades as a national park in 1934. It took park supporters another 13 years to acquire land and secure funding. In 1947, Marjory Stoneman Douglas would publish The Everglades: River of Grass, a work that would come to greatly influence the public perception of the oft-misunderstood region. That same year, Everglades National Park officially opened, marking the first large-scale attempt to protect the area's unique biology. Today, the park comprises a vast wetland wilderness unlike any other in the world.

Despite these efforts, degradation of the ecosystem continued. Burgeoning land development and speculation schemes in the 1960s led to the partial draining of the Big Cypress swamp. Gradually scientists and the public came to realize that the Big Cypress watershed was the key to the survival of the Everglades and the integrity of the entire South Florida ecosystem. In 1968 plans to create a jetport at the swampÕs eastern edge sparked a movement to authorize a national preserve. The establishment of Big Cypress National Preserve in 1974 signaled an important compromise between pro-development and pro-conservation groups. Today the preserve protects the natural, scenic, and hydrologic resources of the area, while providing recreational opportunities not normally found in a unit of the national park system.

Similarly, development pressures during the 1950s and 1960s threatened the Biscayne Bay area. Plans for a major industrial seaport on the shoreline, a causeway to the upper keys, and resort communities jeopardized the relative tranquillity of the bayÕs barrier islands and the surrounding water. By the early 1960s the debate over the preservation of South Biscayne Bay versus the development of resort communities drew wide public attention. After a long political battle, concern for the scenic and ecological values of the area led to the creation of Biscayne National Monument in 1968. Support for the protection of coastal resources continued, leading to the expansion of the monument and its redesignation as a national park in 1980.

National Park Service conservation of marine resources in south Florida began when Fort Jefferson National Monument was established in 1935 to include the surrounding water, submerged land, and a series of keys. In 1992 it was redesignated Dry Tortugas National Park and its purposes expanded. The park now protects significant nesting areas for seabirds, habitat for endangered and threatened sea turtles, and sensitive portions of the Florida Keys coral reef ecosystem.

The creation of these national park system units has underscored both the need for and the public interest in preserving south Florida ecosystem resources. The presence of numerous national wildlife refuges and marine sanctuaries as well as state, local, and private protected areas are also evidence of this support. Yet, even though much of the region has been set aside, the ecosystem remains threatened. Combating nutrient-rich (nitrate-contaminated) water, interrupted hydrology, decreased water supply, exotic plants, and mercury contamination cannot be done successfully at the park level alone. Instead, combined and integrated efforts at the federal, state, county, and local levels are necessary.

Source: NPS

Please contact the park visitor center to find out more details on accessibility to the camping and water access locations. Also, the visitor centers in the park have current park information on weather, closed areas, trails, and active wildlife.

For other National Park Web Samplers, please visit this directory: Return to Map Index

This Everglades National Park map is made with USGS point data and 1-6 year old digital National Park data. In some areas some features may be named wrong, or missing due to the age of the USGS data. Viewers should consider the map as reference only.

Source: NPS, USGS
Map Copyright CCCARTO