Defenders of the Everglades
History
About
Stories of people fighting against a decades-old environmental battle in the Everglades. In the 1960s, plans to build the world’s largest jetport were underway. Environmentalists like Marjory Stoneman Douglas pushed back. She founded the organization Friends of the Everglades with the sole purpose of stopping construction. Her group and others put so much pressure on local, state, and federal governments that construction was stopped, and the jetport plans were scrapped. Now, on the same runway, there are rows of tents and temporary structures. It’s an immigration detention center the state dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” Environmental groups, including the one Douglas started to close the jetport are suing to shut it down. Lawyers are citing the same laws put in place after the jetport. We look back 60 years ago and talk to those who thought this battle was fought and won.
Episodes
- Site 14
Captain Franklin Adams, formerly a surveyor with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a warden with the National Audubon Society, discusses his experiences fighting the jetport. He was also mentored by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas.
- The Law Review
Larry Teply, a law student in 1971, co-wrote a law review article on the Jetport controversy. This article was published in the University of Miami Law Review and documents the historical context of the issue.
- Prologue: The Panel
This episode examines the historical struggle against the construction of a large jetport in the Everglades in the 1960s, led by environmentalists such as Marjory Stoneman Douglas. It also connects this past struggle to a present-day immig…