( CNN ) The next time you fly to see Grandma in Florida , look down . The next time you take the kids on a pilgrimage to see the talking mouse or head down to South Beach for some sun/sin , get a window seat and spend the moments before landing contemplating the seemingly endless swamp below . Because there are few places that represent the folly of man -- and the cost of redemption -- like the Everglades . On approach into Miami or Orlando , it just looks like squishy wasteland full of things that want to hurt you : snakes and scorpions , rats and roaches , gators and mosquitoes . ( A researcher once caught 365,000 bloodthirsty bugs in a single trap in a single night . ) As you drive along the Tamiami Trail , it just looks like endless sawgrass , the kind that feels like walking through broken glass . `` Too wet to farm , too dry to sail , too unpredictable to settle , '' as Michael Grunwald put it in his definitive history , `` The Swamp . '' And so , a century ago , some American dreamers decided to drain the swamp . They decided to conquer that uninhabitable frontier known as Florida . And long before air conditioning , bug spray and Social Security helped seal that vision , the Army Corps of Engineers blasted and dug 2,000 miles of dams and dikes , ditches and pipes . They did a hell of a job . A watershed built for 2 million people now supports nearly 8 million , and another 50 million tourists each year . But what they did n't know is that without this swamp , there can be no `` good life '' in Florida . There can be no life . After a century of development , half the Everglades is dead and the other half is on life support . This is a problem , not just for the gators and snakes . It is a problem for the eagles , panthers , snails , dolphins , hawks , manatees , flamingos , vase sponges , black bears and ghost orchids that make up the most unique , diverse wetlands in the world . And most of all , it is a problem for people . Because most of the drinking water in South Florida comes from the aquifers beneath the Everglades . This 2 million-acre river of grass is not only the best form of hurricane protection , it also supports the multibillion-dollar fishing , shrimping and crabbing industries around the Florida Keys . What was once a slow-moving river of gin-clear water became so sluggish and toxic in the 1990s that most of the life in Florida Bay was wiped out -- and America woke up . Fifteen years after then-Gov . Jeb Bush smiled as Bill Clinton signed the most ambitious wildlife reclamation plan in history , the same Army Corps of Engineers that was ordered to rip the Everglades apart is now under orders to help it heal , to the tune of $ 13 billion as part of a larger congressional restoration plan . That story hook is what drew me here for the final episode of our first season of `` The Wonder List . '' To be honest , as a veteran of a few ho-hum airboat rides , I came with really low expectations . But this place , more than any other this season , surprised me with sublime beauty , great stories and a sense of real urgency as good people try to right the wrongs of the past . Nowhere else is the border between bustling civilization and untamed wilderness so narrow , which is why conservationists like to say that the Everglades is a test . If we pass , we might just get to keep the planet .
The Everglades were drained a century ago and are now being restored . Comment: