It is old history, how the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes were chased from their homelands into the Florida Everglades and stayed there, permitted by the US government to form their own sovereign nation from a sorrowful world, deep in the tree islands and sawgrass the white men couldn't penetrate.
These days, it's free and clear for the white man to visit reservation gaming operations. Limited gambling of the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes earn between $1.5 to $2 billion a year. Florida Governor Charlie Crist announced yesterday a deal with the Seminole Tribe: $100 million per year will be paid to Florida in return for allowing the expansion of its gaming operations.
To me, the gamble of humanity getting through another day makes casinos uninteresting. I know, that's a reason individuals gamble.
What interests me, is how the Miccosukee Tribe spends a small fortune on lawsuits related to the Everglades but nothing to otherwise support environmental groups engaged in the effort to "restore" the Everglades.
Protecting the Everglades is a matter of birthright to the Native Americans who live there. Everglades restoration, authorized by Congress in 2000 and supported in a partnership with the State of Florida, is the world's most expensive and politically challenging ecosystem restoration initiative.
Certainly, the Tribes want the Everglades to be functional--it is a matter of deep religious significance. And yet, after decades of thrashing, "restoration" is still a $10 billion ship to nowhere-- at least as far as the Everglades are concerned.
But the strange fact is that, with all the publicity and reams of newsprint, most Floridians believe the Glades are being saved. And that is a big problem for anyone concerned with ecosystem restoration anywhere, including the imperative of global warming. Joe Podgor, then of Friends of the Everglades, astutely said, "The Everglades is a test. If we pass, we get to keep the planet." He was right.
But if the Everglades are so important to the Tribes, why don't they invest in any of the environmental organizations that are also fighting for the Everglades?
These non-profit groups are so poorly funded, they scarcely have any influence at all. The restoration process has turned into a massive juggernaut of agencies, staff, budgets and meetings in hotel rooms around Florida. Environmentalists bob like sytrofoam cups on a greasy sea.
To the extent they have influence, it is only as junior partners to whatever status quo the powerful polluters configure as: whether sugar in the north or thirsty cities on the edges. The tribal leaders don't necessarily view environmentalists as effective allies.
The Tribes may also feel that environmental organizations involved with the Everglades are dysfunctional, weak-kneed, and unreliable allies. Fair enough. The conservationist end of Everglades ecosystem restoration has been easy pickings for the political status quo: so much money, such immense fiscal resources have been applied by private industry, that distorting government policies and deforming environmental alliances has been simple as shooting fish in a barrel.
Groups like Audubon of Florida are invited to sit at the table of decision makers, keeping the grass roots and others at bay. The pecking order of the environmental tribe is a function of funding: it's the Golden Rule. He who has the gold, rules.
Looked at from the Tribe's perspective, the amount of money raised by environmental groups is probably no more than spoilage in the casino's food operation.
Yes, there are major issues that divide the Tribes from the environmental groups. Flood control. Tribal villages are highly vulnerable to higher water levels, which restoration proposes in certain sections of the Glades. In itself, it is not a reason to look beyond the role that environmentalists could potentially provide if the Tribes engaged them directly as allies.
The first problem in the Everglades is water quality. Along those lines, the Miccosukee Tribe through its attorney Dexter Lehtinen have successfully invested in one of the nation's most significant lawsuits regarding the pollution of federal lands by Florida.
Although tribal leaders have made a massive contribution to the effort to hold government agencies accountable to the law, ably represented by experts and attorneys, what is missing is public indignation at the inefficiency and problems hobbling "restoration" of the Everglades.
On this front the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes need the white man that the environmental groups can reach and, yet, with billions to spend, they have never even tested the waters.
It is hard to know where this antipathy comes from: whether it is an issue of dogmatic personalities, or simply, a sense of satisfied horror at the unsustainable world the Miami status quo has created. And it may not matter.
The simple truth is that the Tribes are the only monetary wellspring deep enough to repel the influence of Sugar Barons in Congress and Tallahasee and the White House.
How much money would it cost to be competitive with the messages delivered by Big Sugar and the greedy developers at the edge of the River of Grass? Using the white man to gin up gambling revenues is no different from using the white man to protect the Everglades.
If I were a tribal leader, I'd throw a few chips on greens--just to see if my luck had changed.
5 comments:
The environmental groups don't even know which side they are on half the time. Some groups get in bed with pretty strange bedfellows: i.e. Audubon and St. Joe
After being evicted from their land and almost decimated, do you believe the tribes will again trust "the white man"? How many treaties with the tribes were signed to be later violated by the "pale faces"? A brief reading of our history will give you the answer.
You won't get any argument from me, the anger, animosity, and the historical record. Actually, the decisions facing the Tribes on investing in protecting the Everglades are not about "trust".
For that, you or anyone could hire a fidicuiary: ie. someone to hold accountable for performance.
The point I'm making is this: the water quality battle in the Everglades is being lost--notwithstanding the billions of dollars spent and to be spent in the future.
L-O-S-T.
We've run out of time notwithstanding the millions spent by the Tribe on successful litigation.
As much as the Tribes may dislike doing business with the white man, outside of the casinos, it is only the white man--through environmental organizations--who could (and it's a big COULD, I admit) bring pressure to bear against the very well-funded special interests who will turn the Everglades into a cesspit for their pollution.
The Tribes can't do that. Not even with successful litigation.
So, yes: I know history. I know, too, that the Tribes hold the high hand in terms of money.
So if the first order of business is to protect water quality, why wouldn't the Tribes use the entire toolbox to address the problems instead of just the federal courts? Like I said: the amount of money we're talking about is spoilage from the restaurant operations.
At the end of the day, even the white man is going to hate what we've turned the planet into. In the case of the Everglades, there's capacity to change course-- but not without stirring up the broad mass of Floridians, and that takes money: a commodity only the Tribes have to spare and a clear and compelling motive for spending it.
If the tribes hate the white man so much why are there so many white men in control of the huge gambling empires like Foxwoods? Why are tribes letting the management of these huge casinos screw their workers (see Foxwoods) or cut out the weaker tribe members who are mixed race yet still blood relatives (its called racism)? Why is there so little support for the poorer tribes (from richer tribes) still starving and stuck in the unpopulated areas of the country where their reservations are located after they were push out of the now urban areas by the whiteman? Why have the native peoples' movements activists imprisoned in the 1960s and 1970s been forgotten by the rich tribes? Why are some tribes allowed to build casions and some not? Perhaps because it is really about white men pulling the strings rather than the tribes at all?
Interesting questions, and with all due respect-- beyond my capacity to answer.
Speaking to the issue of Everglades pollution, there's a very particular tangle of powerful politics working destroy the heart of the Tribe's tribal land. The Tribes have the wealth, they want to protect their sovereign nation and should deploy financial assets accordingly. Of course, the Tribes do rely on the federal court to protect them. But it is not enough, and there's not enough time to wait for the results.
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