Environment: Lady of the Everglades

Marjory Stoneman Douglas fights for Florida's wetlands

"It was like nothing else on earth. In Lake Okeechobee, the blue-and-purple water hyacinth was higher than our heads. On the coast, blue-and-green water, blue sky roofed with thousands and thousands of white birds overhead. You would be silent, and all you could hear was the wings rustling. One day we sat in our boats through such a sight, with the sun setting, then the moon, as the birds headed into their rookeries, like a bouquet of white flowers, before nightfall."

For nearly four decades, Marjory Stoneman Douglas,...