Protecting Paradise: The Western Everglades

In 1947, the same year President Harry S. Truman established Everglades National Park, work began on a complex system of drainage canals that would change south Florida – and the swamp – forever. However, this threat to the cypress-studded marshland on the western edge of the Everglades inspired a groundswell of grassroots conservation efforts and propelled Collier County to the forefront of an environmental battle that would stretch all the way to the Supreme Court. Narrated by Peter Thomas (Nova), PROTECTING PARADISE: THE WESTERN EVERGLADES tells this story through historic photographs, vintage footage and interviews with leaders of the early conservation movement and biologists and environmentalists.