This past week, the Everglades Coalition held its 27th annual conference, which brought together almost 300 governmental, community and business leaders with its 56 environmental organization members to discuss new opportunities to advance Everglades restoration and protection. Important panel discussions were led by Audubon staff, including a panel on the pioneering Central Everglades Planning Project led by Executive Director Eric Draper.
Julie Hill-Gabriel, Audubon’s Director of Everglades Policy co-chaired the coalition and brought together some of the highest ranking leaders involved in Everglades restoration. State partners including Governor Rick Scott, Florida Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Hershel Vinyard and South Florida Water Management District Director Melissa Meeker expressed the State’s commitment to the 50/50 Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Federal officials Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, Jo-Ellen Darcy, Assistant Secretary of the Army, Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of Interior and Ann Mills, Under Secretary of USDA all represented the federal partners’ desire to work cooperatively with Florida to find solutions to some of the Everglades’ most daunting challenges. Senator Bill Nelson offered a riveting assessment of the unique opportunities to restore the Everglades’ ecological treasures while Senator Marco Rubio’s representatives and many state and local elected officials were in attendance, with an representation from the leaders and citizens of Martin County. Novelist Carl Hiaasen also provided a comic assessment of the challenges facing Everglades’ activists.
Audubon will work to build upon the goals and other ideas discussed in line with the conference theme - Everglades Restoration: Worth Every Penny - to make sure sound projects that achieve ecological benefits are implemented with a sense of urgency.
Audubon's Director of Everglades Policy and Everglades Conference Co-Chair Julie Hill-Gabriel was quoted in the Naples News:
Julie Hill-Gabriel, state co-chairwoman of the coalition and director of Everglades policy for Audubon of Florida, agreed that participants were excited that "we're no longer just in the building-up-to stage, we're getting things in the ground. Now that we're actually implementing some of these plans, it makes it easier to recognize that we can be successful."Hill-Gabriel said it was exciting to see the various groups represented at the conference "saying they're going to work together to get things done, to take the challenges of Everglades restoration head-on. I don't think it's ever been like this in the past. In the past there's always been this, well, tension. Is it really a 'Kumbaya' moment? C'mon. But there really has been a concerted effort to get face-to-face, eye-to-eye and work things out."
Additional Coverage of the Conference:
