The Invasion of the Florida Everglades Ecosystem by the Brazilian Pepper

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The Invasion of the Florida Everglades Ecosystem by the Brazilian Pepper

It was as if the class had just stepped out onto the moon the way the limestone craters pockmarked the area's surface. It looked most uninhabitable indeed! Yet, here and there tufts of sawgrass had naturally reseeded and sprung up to reclaim the land. Like the American flag hoisted in place by Neil Armstrong on the moon, the tufts of sawgrass seemed to be saying, “One small step for sawgrass, one giant leap for the Everglades ecosystem!” Indeed, to witness the success of the Hole-in-the-Donut Restoration Project is like being the captain of a boat lost at sea catching a break in the fog long enough to glimpse a beacon's light before it becomes shrouded again in the mist of politics, economics and bureaucracy. Yet, that brief glimpse of light is enough to encourage even me, an increasingly cynical and apathetic environmentalist, to trudge on.

Before this seemingly barren lunar landscape emerged, the first invasive exotic species to colonize what would later be called the Hole-in-the-Donut area were a group of Homosapiens sapiens subsp. agricultis , otherwise known as farmers. After the last of the farmers left in the early 1970s, they left behind a rock-plowed, slightly elevated patch of land pregnant with nutrients otherwise not known in the mesic prairie wetlands that originally occupied this space. Thus, the scene was set for one of the most destructive vegetative invasions seen in the Everglades ecosystem thus far. The army came from Brazil and was crafty enough to get its enemy to use its own resources to advance its invasion. Its weapon: clusters of bright red berries that enticed the likes of Florida 's state bird the mockingbird, cedar wax...

... middle of paper ...

...con. Bot . 32: p. 354.

6) Morton, JF. 1978. Brazilian pepper, its impact on people, animals, and the

environment. Econ. Bot . 32: p. 354.

7) Workman, R, ed. 1978. Schinus : Technical proceedings of techniques for control of

Schinus in south Florida : A workshop for natural area managers. Tech. report. Sanibel

(FL): The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Inc. pg. 1.

8) Workman, R, ed. 1978. Schinus : Technical proceedings of techniques for control of

Schinus in south Florida : A workshop for natural area managers. Tech. report. Sanibel

(FL): The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Inc. pg. 19.

9) Workman, R, ed. 1978. Schinus : Technical proceedings of techniques for control of

Schinus in south Florida : A workshop for natural area managers. Tech. report. Sanibel

(FL): The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Inc. pg. 19.

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