The Florida Everglades ecosystem is at once diverse, highly valued, and highly disturbed. Because of the size of the ecosystem (originally more than 10,000 km²) and the importance of water to the various human activities adjacent to the Everglades, its management is both complex and controversial. Attempts to control the hydrology of southern Florida for flood control and the creation of farmland have led to decreases in both the quantity and the quality of the water moving through the Everglades. In turn, these changes in the water regime of the ecosystem have led to large-scale community shifts and dramatic reductions in many bird populations. Although the interconnectedness of the ecosystem and the consequent necessity of large-scale management were recognized early in the 20th century (Light et al. 1995), it is only within the last decade that the term “Ecosystem Management” has been applied to the Everglades. During this same decade, government agencies, scientists, and industry have intensified their efforts to reach both an understanding of the ecosystem and an agreement about its management. Participation in ecosystem management of the Everglades has been scaled up to match the size of the ecosystem. Two separate institutions, the federal Interagency Task Force and the state Governor’s Council have coordinated information collection and planning among government agencies, social and natural scientists, environmental groups and industry.

Preliminary results of the process are promising. Scientists have found that there is plenty of water entering the Everglades, and that satisfying multiple stakeholders may be accomplished, at least in part, simply by altering the hydrology of the system. Collaboration continues to be key, however, in working out the relationship between sugar cane production and the Everglades. Because of the importance of hydrology and the public ownership of most of the Everglades, participation in the implementation of ecosystem management will be limited largely to government agencies (particularly the Army Corps of Engineers), and the sugar industry; information collection and assessment will be done by scientists, and full participation will recur with subsequent rounds of planning.