Some Help for Species, and for Beautification

Life forms that need the Everglades. Of course, we all do.

The Everglades is an expansive marsh that I have had the privilege to visit a few times, full of tropical life and especially great birds. The efforts to save it from development have been going on for decades, with some effect. Now it will be enlarged by donation of lands that have been devoted to sugar production. This is such a grand development, I hope along with everyone that it works out.

Species have diminished because of growing areas of development, and in Texas, a lot of wildlife is being displaced. We need to keep areas available for the natural residents, and some of us keep underbrush uncut for nesting of such birds as can tolerate close quarters with us. I have a nesting brown thrush that I was overjoyed to see from the kitchen window yesterday, and have been hearing birdsong of many sorts that I can't identify - being miserable at it. The Everglades is a place that many species can live, and it's heartening that we can leave it for them.

One of America's key ecosystems, the Everglades in Florida, is to be greatly expanded after a landmark deal between the state and a major sugar company.

The US Sugar Corp has tentatively agreed to sell its 800sq km (300sq miles) of land in the Everglades to state authorities for $1.75bn (£890m).

The land, currently used for growing sugar cane, will be turned back into its natural state of swampy marshland.

However, sugar producers are concerned the move will cost up to 2,000 jobs.

'Missing link'

The deal proposes that after six more years of production, US Sugar will close down and its plantations will be turned over to the state in Florida's biggest ever land acquisition.

Environmentalists have welcomed the news, calling it the largest ecological restoration project in the history of the United States.

Sugar cane is a crop that is grown in a lot of areas, and doesn't need a threatened wetland for its production. Relatives of mine in Costa Rica grew sugarcane, and a part of its cultivation there was a yearly burn. (Burning cane was used as part of the soft porn film "Sweet Sugar", filmed on a cousin's finca.) The smoke from burning cane invades our atmosphere here in Texas every year, and creates pollution levels that usually rate a few days of warning to stay indoors if you can. Although the burning wasn't employed here, it was never an essential crop, and sugar can come from other sources as well.

The use of land to enrich our country's environment cannot be adequately praised, so I'll just say Right On.