there seems to be some good news regarding the most imperilled marshlands on earth, the Florida Everglades. The South Florida Water Management District, which undertook studies of the delicate eco-system, reports that farmers have achieved a 68 per cent reduction in the amount of phosphorus fertiliser discharged from their fields.

Excessive phosphorus runoff has led to the growth of exotic pests and plants like cattails which have choked the Everglades. The massive restoration programme seeks to redress this imbalance and could take some 20 years of continuous operations to clean-up the human-made disaster. Plans for the resto- ration include not only forcing farmers to clean up their runoffs, but also the creation of filtering marshes which will clean up the farm water even further.