Takeaways from AP's story on the Miccosukee's fight to protect the Everglades

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9:42 AM on Friday, December 20, 2024

By DORANY PINEDA and REBECCA BLACKWELL

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — For centuries, the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida has called the Everglades home. But decades of engineering projects have devastated their ancestral lands and an ecosystem that’s sustained them. Water mismanagement has contributed to fires, floods and water pollution in their communities and cultural sites. Climate change, and the fossil fuel activities that caused it, are ongoing threats. With a new administration, the tribe has played an increasingly collaborative and leadership role in healing the Everglades. They’re working to stop oil exploration, fought a wilderness designation that would've cut their access to ancestral lands and have pushed for a project to reconnect western Everglades with the larger ecosystem while helping to control invasive species.