In Florida, the Miccosukee fight to protect the Ev...

EVERGLADES, Fla. (AP) — As a boy, when the water was low Talbert Cypress from the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida rummaged through the Everglades’ forests, swam in its swampy ponds and fished in its canals.

But the vast wetlands near Miami have radically changed since Cypress was younger. Now 42 and tribal council chairman, Cypress said water levels are among the biggest changes. Droughts are drier and longer. Prolonged floods are drowning tree islands sacred to them. Native wildlife have dwindled.

“It’s basically extremes now,” he said.

Tribal elder Michael John Frank put it this way: “The Everglades is beautiful, but it’s just a skeleton of the way it used to be.”

The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida has long fought to heal and protect the Everglades and what remains of their ancestral lands. (AP video: Daniel Kozin)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series of on how tribes and Indigenous communities are coping with and combating climate change.

For centuries, the Everglades has been the tribe’s home. But decades of massive engineering projects for development and agriculture severed the wetlands to about half its original size, devastating an ecosystem that’s sustained them. Tribe members say water mismanagement has contributed to fires, floods and water pollution in their communities and cultural sites. Climate change, and the fossil fuel activities that caused it, are ongoing threats.

The Miccosukee people have long fought to heal and protect what remains. They were historically reluctant to engage with the outside world due to America’s violent legacy against Indigenous people. But with a new tribal administration, the tribe has played an increasingly collaborative and leadership role in healing the Everglades.

Miccosukee Tribal elder Michael Frank, top left, rides an airboat with members of a task force that brings together federal, state, tribal and local agencies working to restore and protect the Florida Everglades, on a field visit to the Miccosukee Indian Reservation ahead of a task force meeting hosted by the tribe, Wednesday, April 24, 2024 on the Fla. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Airboats carry members of a task force that brings together federal, state, tribal and local agencies working to restore and protect the Florida Everglades, on a field visit to the Miccosukee Indian Reservation ahead of a task force meeting hosted by the Miccosukee Tribe, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

They’re working to stop oil exploration and successfully fought a wilderness designation that would have cut their access to ancestral lands. They’ve pushed for a project to reconnect the western Everglades with the larger ecosystem while helping to control invasive species and reintroducing racoons, hawks and other native animals. In August they signed a co-stewardship agreement for some of South Florida’s natural landscapes. They’ve held prayer walks, launched campaigns to raise awareness of important issues and used airboat tours as public classrooms.

Even so, a new report on the progress of Everglades work acknowledges a lack of meaningful and consistent engagement with the Miccosukee and Seminole tribes. It calls for applying Indigenous knowledge to restoration efforts and a steady partnership with tribes, whose longstanding, intimate and reciprocal relationship with the environment can help with understanding historical and present ecological conditions.

Members of a task force that brings together federal, state, tribal and local agencies working to restore and protect the Florida Everglades stand beside chickees, thatched-roof, open-sided platform huts used traditionally for cooking, sleeping, and gathering, on Big Hammock, one of the largest tree islands within the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

For generations, the Miccosukee people would make pilgrimages from northern Florida to the Everglades to fish, hunt and hold religious ceremonies. When the Seminole Wars broke out in 1817, the tribe navigated the vast terrain better than the U.S. Army. By the late 1850s, Col. Gustavus Loomis had seared every tribal village and field in a region known as the Big Cypress, forcing the Miccosukee and Seminole people to seek refuge on tree islands deep in the Everglades.

“That’s the reason we’re here today. We often look at the Everglades as our protector during that time. And so now, it’s our turn to protect the Everglades,” said Cypress.

Trainer Jessie Cottone, a non-tribe member employed by the Miccosukee Tribe, demonstrates traditional techniques for subduing and controlling gators, during a day-long environmental and cultural education event at Miccosukee Indian Village, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in the Florida Everglades. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A catch of fish from invasive species is assessed by judges during the fifth annual “Removal of the Swamp Invaders” fishing tournament, part of an Earth Day environmental and cultural education event at Miccosukee Indian Village, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in the Florida Everglades. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Many of the Everglades’ modern problems began in the 1940s when the region was drained to build cities and plant crops. Over time, the ecosystems where the Miccosukee people hunted, fished and gathered plants, held sacred rituals and put their deceased to rest, have been destroyed.

A state-federal project to clean the water and rehydrate the landscape aims to undo much of the damage. But water management decisions and restoration efforts have flooded or parched lands where tribe members live and hold ceremonies.

That’s a reason the tribe has pushed for decades for a comprehensive response with the Western Everglades Restoration Project. Members have spoken at public meetings, written letters to federal agencies, lobbied with state and federal leaders while gathering with stakeholders to hear their concerns. If all goes right, the project will clean polluted water, improve hydrology, provide flood protection and reduce the likelihood and severity of wildfires. Groundbreaking for the project began in July there .

Curtis Osceola, chief of staff for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, uses a machete to cut back branches of an invasive Brazilian pepper tree on Big Hammock, one of many tree islands inside the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades. The tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Department, as well as individual members, take an active role in invasive species control and native species reintroduction. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Still, there are concerns about community flood risks and whether the project will do enough to improve water quality and quantity after a part of the plan was removed.

A second engineered wetland that would have cleaned water was removed from the project proposal after landowners wouldn’t give up their lands. The area’s geology was also deemed too porous to sustain it. In the absence of an alternative, some people worry water will not meet standards.

Even so, Curtis Osceola, chief of staff for the Miccosukee Tribe, said of the project: “If we get this done, we will have forever changed the future for the Miccosukee and Seminole.”

Raccoons explore their new environment after being released on the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

In a region of the Everglades now known as the Big Cypress National Preserve, environmental activist and Miccosukee tribe member Betty Osceola learned as a child to spear hunt and subsist off the land like her ancestors did. It’s where she still lives, in one of 15 traditional villages that a few hundred Miccosukee and Seminole people also call home.

In its cypress swamps and sawgrass prairies, they hunt, gather medicinal plants and hold important events. It’s home to ceremonial and burial grounds, and to the endangered Florida panther.

The National Park Service wanted to designate the preserve as wilderness to protect it from human impacts. The tribe pushed back, saying it would have significantly affected their traditional ways of life, limited access to their homelands and ignored the critical stewardship they’ve provided for centuries. Allowing Indigenous people to remain caretakers of their lands and waters, numerous studies have shown, are critical to protecting biodiversity, forests and fighting climate change.

After a stern fight involving campaigns, a petition, testimonials and support from numerous government officials, the tribe succeeded.

A Miccosukee Tribe member wearing a traditional skirt walks past booths during a day-long environmental and cultural education event at Miccosukee Indian Village, Saturday, April 20, 2024, in the Florida Everglades. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Miccosukee Tribal elder Michael Frank grasps his walking stick as he speaks with members of a task force that brings together federal, state, tribal and local agencies working to restore and protect the Florida Everglades, on a field visit to the Miccosukee Indian Reservation ahead of a task force meeting hosted by the Miccosukee Tribe, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)