Today's Dose of Nature: The Kampong, Part 2
(see yesterday's Dose of Nature for background information)
So why is a wildlife / nature post starting with an old photo of a blimp? David Fairchild was part of a group of individuals - Including notably, Marjory Stoneman Douglas - who thought that the Florida Everglades should be preserved and protected as a National Park.
And while Douglas' 1947 book, River of Grass, is well known, as was her persistent advocacy for the Everglades (as well as women's rights), she was a journalist. It was Fairchild, the biologist who wrote the scientific paper supporting the need to preserve the ecosystem, and who had many contacts in Washington - family and professional connections, people in government, the editor of National Geographic (for which Fairchild wrote many articles).
Fairchild, Douglas, and others, including May Mann Jennings and Garald Parker, planted the seeds and nurtured the idea, and Douglas’ persistence pushed things over the top. Everglades National Park was created in December 1947, about a month after the official publication of River of Grass.
The blimp photo, from 1930 - 17 years earlier - is from an expedition he arranged to take government officials on an aerial tour of the Everglades following a conference on its preservation held at The Kampong in Miami.
Douglas (once referred to by President Nixon as "that damned butterfly chaser") lived to the ripe old age of 108, and continued to lead efforts to protect the Everglades from encroachment and commercialization for decades.
She would also write and publish, in 1973, “Adventures in a Green World” - a book about the explorations of Fairchild and his long-time mentor and sponsor, Barbour Lathrop.
-- Steve
