If the Everglades Foundation (EF) sold stock and Everglades restoration was its product, the value of its shares would be at an all-time high.
This year, EF highlighted a report from the non-profit Earth Economics, which estimated the value of the Everglades ecosystem to be over $1 trillion over the next 50 years.
Then in June at the America’s Everglades Summit in Washington, D.C., the report — titled Thriving Everglades, Thriving Economy: Nature’s Value in the Everglades showed the Everglades’ $31.5 billion annual economic impact into seven key ecosystem services: $9.2 billion from real estate enhancement, $8.5 billion from recreation, $8.4 billion from protection against extreme weather, $3.3 billion from biodiversity and habitat, $781 million from carbon sequestration, $26.7 million from commercial fishing and critical water supply for millions of people.
In August, EF, along with Miles Medina, founder of Ecco Scientific, announced they had developed a model to predict red tide blooms along Florida’s southwest coast. The modeling forecast has an accuracy of 73% for one-week forecasts and 84% for four-week forecasts in predicting red tide outbreaks.
In September, Everglades Foundation’s Chief Science Officer, Dr. Steve Davis along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers laid out the success of a new canal called the 10A contract, which will help move huge amounts of water from Lake Okeechobee south.
This project will restore the natural flow of water across South Florida, and the canal will connect Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades Agricultural Area reservoir, which will store and filter the lake water to be sent south to the Everglades.
The reservoir itself will stand about 37 feet high and stretch more than 200 feet across at its base. Davis says when complete, there will be an improvement of cleaner water, reducing harmful discharges to the east and west coasts that can trigger toxic blue-green algae blooms.
