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Everglades Management
The <em>canonical case</em> of conservation-phase optimization destroying the system it was managing — and the subsequent adaptive-governance restoration effort.
The Everglades ecosystem in South Florida was managed for decades under a conservation-phase paradigm: the Army Corps of Engineers straightened rivers, built canals, drained wetlands, and imposed a controlled hydrological regime designed to maximize agricultural productivity and flood protection. The engineering was excellent. The coordination was tight. And the Everglades was dying. The system was optimized for stability it did not need, and the elimination of natural variability destroyed the biological complexity that made the ecosystem productive. The subsequent Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, adopted in 2000, represents one of the largest adaptive-governance experiments ever attempted.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The Everglades is a dynamic system that depends on variability — seasonal fluctuations in water level, periodic fires, the unpredictable meandering of sheet flow across the landscape. The engineering regime eliminated the variability. Without it, fire-adapted communities were replaced by fire-intolerant monocultures. Species that depended on seasonal drying lost their habitat. Water that had flowed in broad, shallow sheets was channeled into canals that discharged to the ocean, carrying with it the nutrients the ecosystem needed.