The name Marjory Stoneman Douglas has now become forever associated with the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last week. Who was Marjory Stoneman Douglas? She graduated from Wellesley College and became a crusading journalist, author, women’s suffrage advocate, and notably–a conservationist. She was a passionate steward of the Everglades, 1.5 million acres of fragile wetlands at the southern tip of Florida.
The following passage is excerpted from the article by Roy Greene that appeared in the Boston Globe on February 20, 2018 :
Her 1947 bestseller, “The Everglades: River of Grass”, was a plea to preserve the delicate ecosystem. “There are no other Everglades in the world,” Douglas wrote. “They are, they have always been, one of the unique regions of the earth; remote, never wholly known. Nothing anywhere else is like them.” Her impact on US wetlands policy has been likened to that of Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring,” on the harmful effects of pesticides.
To learn more about Douglas’ work in the Everglades, go to the National Park Service website.
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