The South Florida Ecosystem, also known as
the Greater Everglades Ecosystem, is a unique, complex, and
biologically diverse landscape. Extending from the Chain
of Lakes south of Orlando through the reefs southwest of the
Florida Keys, its 18,000 square miles includes subtropical
uplands, wetlands, and coral reefs. It is comprised of
two major drainage basins, the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades
Watershed and the Big Cypress Basin. Land uses include
National Parks, Preserves, Marine Sanctuaries and other
conservation areas, as well as agriculture, mining, and rapidly
expanding urban and other residential areas. Water --
its quantity, quality, distribution and timing -- is vital
throughout.
Although humans have influenced this
landscape for hundreds of years, their effects accelerated in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries with grand-scale land
projects: the many canals built to facilitate transportation,
drainage, flood control and irrigation; the Herbert Hoover
Dike; the roads small and large -- most dramatically Tamiami
Trail and Alligator Alley -- that alter water flow and often
fragment habitats; the exotic plants brought to Florida,
however intentionally, from far corners of the globe; the
by-products of agriculture and urban living carried by water
throughout much of the system. Certainly in this
ecosystem and its landscape, humans and nature, as well as the
ecosystem's health and fate, are, for good or ill, inextricably
entwined. And indeed, many of the ecosystem restoration
efforts involve changes to human-built structures.
This landscape, so rich in flora and
fauna, is however, visually subtle. Its functions,
variations, and features are often not obvious and
relationships between urban and relatively natural areas are
often obscure. Moreover, the notion of this
area as one ecosystem, one watershed, as
one integrated and interdependent region, is not reinforced by
deliniations of cities, counties, or laws. Because many
people are newcomers or tourists, and here for relatively short
periods,
collective memory tends to be short, and
children who are educated in schools about this environment
often do not remain here as adults.
The South Florida Ecosystem Interpretive
Signage System was conceived in response to these conditions.
An
integrated signage system will mark
significant features of the South Florida, or Greater
Everglades, Ecosystem, and interpret it as a single
interdependent region. Signs, located at key points along
roads, highways, trails, and at interpretive sites will
identify water bodies, structures and other landscape features,
inhabitants and processes
significant to the ecosystem and its
functions - from headwaters to canals, from rivers to water
treatment wetlands - in urban, rural and "natural"
areas. Each sign will also depict graphically each site's
relationship to the larger landscape system, that is, it will
convey the relationship of each part to the whole. While
each sign may be slightly different, its graphic design will
show it is a member of the larger, ecosystem-wide, family of
signs. Such accessible signage will contribute
significantly to public understanding of this region's complex
but often subtle environment; the better informed people are
about their environment, the more sound will be their decisions
concerning it. This signage system is
intended to foster a sense of South
Florida as a distinctive region as well as ecosystem. It
will stand as a self-sufficient project to reveal and interpret
the South Florida landscape and some of the complicated
relationships of its ecology,
but it can also be the cornerstone of more
comprehensive, integrated and multi-faceted environmental
education and interpretive programs about the ecosystem and the
restoration projects therein.
* Client:
Office of the Executive Director,
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration
Task Force
