News

Florida's Everglades - the world-renowned wetland area that has been under siege for more than a century - has been offered a lifeline.

This week, the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, announced plans to buy more than 800sq km (300sq miles) of land used for growing sugarcane, and restore it to its natural state.

The state of Florida will pay the firm US Sugar $1.7bn for the land, which will be turned into marshes and waterways.

The aim is to restore the fabled "river of grass", a 160-kilometre (99-mile) long, shallow river flowing unimpeded from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay.

Lake Okeechobee is the second-largest freshwater lake wholly within the continental United States.

Water management

Environmentalists hope the latest moves will restore a fragile ecosystem that supplies fresh water to the aquifers of southern Florida.

They have described the proposal by Mr Crist as the largest ecological restoration project in the history of the US...