by Houston R. Cypress,
Coordination Circle, Love The Everglades Movement

The Film, Recording & Entertainment Council (link) is one of South Florida’s most important economic development organizations serving the Entertainment Industry and over the weekend FREC held its 11th Annual Star Gala recognition ceremony at the Magic City Casino.

The Star Gala (link) recognizes industry professionals and organizations whose careers and bodies of work establish South Florida as a significant region for developing a career in this commercial sector.  There is a thriving community of people here in South Florida and it is important to note just who they are and what they have done.

The nature of entertainment necessarily highlights those on stage, or in front of the camera, or in the spotlight, and so the unique work of the Star Gala is to highlight the talent and expertise of those behind-the-scenes.  The types of categories that this event notes include the work of choreographers, lawyers, recording executives, producers, directors, make-up artists, casting directors, recording studios, up-and-coming talent, and so many more.

Love The Everglades Movement, like FREC, is a member-driven organization.  Our work is concerned with offering opportunities for people to connect with the Everglades and thereby inspiring positive change in the broader society so that we can achieve goals such as improved water quality in the Florida Everglades.  Many of us are artists, and so the methods that we’ve been using reflect our skills.  We understand how our artistic projects communicate complex messages across multiple dimensions, so we’ve been eager to invite influential people to participate in our excursions and events.  Our understanding of the influential embraces people such as teachers, event planners, spiritual leaders, political organizers, etc.

We also strive to cultivate a community of people concerned with Everglades matters using an approach that is respectful of local mores – which we are discovering is not an easy task.  This work has required us to learn new languages, to go outside of our comfort zones, and to confront obstacles of all types.

LTEM began with a vision that Jean Sarmiento (link) was blessed with as a result of his dedication to his spiritual and ceremonial work.  Since the fall of 2012, our work has evolved:  from Everglades excursions, to art exhibitions, inter-faith prayer rituals, benefit concerts, short films, interviews with print/radio/television/internet media, and an eclectic symposium.

Our Summer Symposium 2014 (link) was the culmination of all of the projects and community networking that we’ve been involved in since our efforts began.  Our program and attendance reflected that.  It was also an event that was free to attend so that there would be no barriers preventing people from getting engaged in Everglades advocacy – FREC took note.

At the Star Gala, event hosts such as Trina Robinson of NBC 6 and world-renowned artist Laurence Gartel took time to highlight my achievements in film, television and art, as well as my community work with the Love The Everglades Movement as a prime reason for the honor.

So, I would like to share this honor with everyone who has been involved with LTEM in one way or another since our work began, including all those who’ve been on our Everglades excursions, everyone who has prayed for the water, all the friends we’ve made in all the different communities that we’ve visited, our benefactors and sponsors, and all the members of the Coordination Circle (link).  Nuff Respect!

Another honoree that was noted for Best Film Festival was Filmgate Interactive (link).  Filmgate is an event that showcases and develops transmedia projects – projects that are expressed across multiple media platforms.  Diliana Alexander, Executive Director for Filmgate, invited LTEM to collaborate on their filmmaking workshop.  Diliana wanted to use her resources to express an environmental and humanitarian concern for the Everglades and the Miccosukee community while providing artists from around the world with an opportunity to hone their skills using cutting-edge technologies.  You can see the result of this collaboration by clicking THIS LINK.

The Star Gala was a blast!  Some of us from the Coordination Circle who attended had an opportunity to rub shoulders with the professionals of the South Florida entertainment industry.  And I had a great time, with Dudley Alexis of Epyllion Films (link), in putting together the tribute video honoring Irene Marie of modeling agency fame for her Lifetime Achievement Award.  Love The Everglades Movement was in great company.

by Geovanny Perez & Houston R. Cypress,
Coordination Circle, Love The Everglades Movement

Hello everyone.  I'd like to thank THE RIVERS COALITION, THE RIVER WARRIORS, AND C4CW for inviting me to speak today; I truly feel honored to do so.  I'm also excited to be able to connect with all of you, even if under such dire circumstances.

As for the matter that brings us here, I have found it necessary to participate in the effort to restore the Everglades because it's where my home (including my clan and Tribe) and heart resides.  In my lifetime I've seen many destructive changes to our lands, such as the disintegration of tree islands, the disappearance of game animals, the increase of pollution in water, and the erosion of the Everglades.  Because our culture is tied to the land (our ceremonies, our medicines, and many other spiritual practices), we are witnessing the gradual disappearance of our culture.   We are losing our roots.

But we know there is hope; we can certainly steer this thing in the right direction, but it will take incredible coordination and resolve to manifest our dreams.

This is where our spirituality comes in.

Personally, I don't believe spirituality to be superstition or hollow, self-promoting, self-serving, self-comforting cliches.

Instead, it is about wisdom, insight, strength, patience, trust, and compassion, and in the face of great uncertainty and potential doom, this is exactly what we need.  There are many great sages that have explored the struggles of the human condition in such a mysterious universe, peering deeply into our very being and place in the universe.  There is much to learn for the sake of our global as well as local ecosystems.

With Love the Everglades Movement, LOVE is central to our cause because we do not want to be ruled by fear or anger.  In fact, we know we cannot afford to be mindlessly distracted given what's at stake and the amount of time we have to make things right.  We know that anger and fear, especially in a crisis situation, may galvanize some, but it can also blind us, divide us, perpetuate the delusion that we are factions bent on defeating one another, and thus undermine these important efforts. 

In getting to know some of you, I've heard from you about other groups involved in this issue, and those comments have been disparaging.  We are supposed to be the SOLUTION to this problem, otherwise our divisions are poison in the water.  We do not have the luxury to bicker, but we can overcome this, in fact, we MUST overcome this.  As someone with an outside perspective, this entrenched rift is off-putting, but it is also all too familiar, so I sympathize with you even as I am critical (our Tribe has been witness to entrenched bickering slowing the Everglades restoration effort to a glacial pace).

So how are we to overcome this bickering? -- this factionalism?  Love & Respect is a good place to start.  We have youngsters here among us and we must set a good example for them.  Let's show them how to have a civil and civilized dialogue with one another.

Let's also continue to have forums for discussion, so we can increase understanding of our concerns and priorities and proposals for action.

Let's also ask for help from our friends, people such as you.

And let's not be afraid to disagree.  Let's welcome disagreements and critiques as opportunities to learn where our proposals can be strengthened and improved.

Let me offer an example of constructive critique within a context of civilized discussion.  Plan 6 and the Southern Flow way -- a very important proposal with definite room for improvement.  The Holey lands are an area designated as O.F.W. -- Outstanding Federal Waters.  From what I've read on Plan 6, there is not enough discussion or information about this important area:  the Holey Lands, an area with very stringent regulations.  Plan 6 would bring MORE WATER at a REDUCED QUALITY than is currently allowed and protected for.  So the question that Plan 6 must answer to move forward with broader support is:  How do you propose to degrade Outstanding Federal Waters with water from Lake Okeechobee?

I also have a request for my friends:  I need your help to address the L-28 Interceptor Canal.  The failure of CEPP to move forward was very disappointing to all of us.  But CEPP didn't do enough because it failed to address the L-28 Interceptor Canal.  CEPP was concerned with bringing New Water into the system, but the L-28 Interceptor Canal is currently bringing 40% of the waters coming into the area, and it's bringing water in with a disgustingly high concentration of Phosphorus.  By the time the waters pass through the Water Conservation Area 3A, the waters have been naturally filtered out and nearly meet the desired goal of 10 PPB of Phosphorus.  So what this means is that Miccosukee territory becomes a De Facto Stormwater Treatment Area (STA) and that is not right.  So I'm asking for your help to raise awareness and push for action regarding the on-going problem of the L-28 Interceptor Canal.

As for the factionalism within our environmental movements, well those of us from Love The Everglades Movement pledge to work from a place of Love & Respect with each and everyone of you.  WE WILL NOT TAKE SIDES.  We will continue to express our Love and Respect for these waters.

We continue to pray for the purity of the waters flowing from the Kissimmee River Valley, through Lake Okeechobee, over the River of Grass, and out beyond Florida Bay.

We continue to pray that compassion flourishes in the hearts and minds of the decision-makers and stakeholders involved with Everglades Restoration.

We continue to pray for the growth of the community concerned with Everglades Matters -- because the Everglades matters.

And we will continue to stand with you in prayer for the integrity and vitality of the Circle of Life.

These are the challenges we are called to meet -- with hope, grace, and diplomacy.

by Geovanny Perez
Coordination Circle, Love The Everglades Movement

“True love is born from understanding” – Buddha

“The world isn’t all rainbows and ponies, but there are rainbows and ponies in the world” – Unknown

I think I can be way too idealistic, so much so that sometimes when I witness things that do not live up to my standards, I can become distraught.  So working in Everglades matters has been a nightmare at times, because it is easy to become overwhelmed with grief and pessimism for the future once you start to uncover the intractable politics, the barriers to progress, and the logistical holes in the process (lack of coordinated effort and leadership, for instance).

How dreadful to start a blog post, no?  Well, I take this approach because my struggle in Everglades matters has mirrored my personal/spiritual growth.  Struggling with attachment, ignorance, anger, sadness, laziness, heart break etc. – in short, the human condition – is very much like struggling to restore the Everglades, because it feels like you’re ever-surrounded by hope, loss, gain, setbacks, contradictions, and opportunities.  As it turns out – and to the dismay of my idealistic-self—politics, even those that have to do with such a no-brainer issue, is not so straightforward.  But the sage in me can handle this at times, because, after all, it is what it is and it is what it can be: we can understand how things are and work within those parameters and even make parameters of our own.

The Everglades Coalition Conference can be properly understood if viewed through such lens and as part of a larger narrative (and not just an isolated weekend event).  That is, judging the conference as either “good” or “bad”, or giving a rating of X out of 10, can be fruitless because it does us, the movement, no good to see it in such simplistic terms.  Instead, we can see it as a multi-faceted event with problems and opportunities in a larger series of events geared toward fixing the Everglades.

Houston Cypress (on Left) and Geovanny Perez (on Right).

Photo by Stephan Wright.

The trip to the conference served as a reminder to what we’re struggling for.  Personally, traveling with Houston and Jean helps me keep focus, even if we tend to veer off into silliness and absurdity at times.  After all, Houston is deeply invested in this endeavor as a concerned member of the Miccosukee Tribe, and Jean is deeply invested as a very spiritual person unravelling his place in creation.  Furthermore, driving through the Everglades and then Big Cypress with such great company is cleansing and gets your mind right.  So when I listened to speakers or talked to folks about their endeavors, I felt properly oriented.

The conference was set at the Naples Beach Hotel & Golf Club in Naples, FL.  Immediately I was struck by the wasteful opulence of the setting:  resorts, strip malls, and golf courses.  This sort of juxtaposition seems to be typical for the conference which was set in the Biltmore Hotel last year.  Access to the conference is limited in part by the cost of the conference (it was $200 alone for all the meals available).  The third day we were there, I found out from a Sierra Club member that a group of activists were dissuaded from protesting the conference because of inaccessibility the cost creates.  As Laura Reynolds of Tropical Audubon and the Everglades Coalition explained, the resort is the sort of place that will be to the liking of high-profile politicians who have to take this issue seriously.  I could tell she wasn’t very comfortable with the place, but that she also thought it was necessary to get things done. 

Nonetheless, the conference did provide opportunities to understand the latest on the Everglades in the areas of ecology, economics, legal policy and litigation, and politics, and to meet wonderful people.  The second and third days began with breakfast hosted by an organization that was given the podium to address the topic of their choice (nothing like starting off the morning having the Army of Corps of Engineers and politicians scolded, but also heralded).  Afterward, there would be plenary sessions, covering large issues, such as the opportunities for land acquisition, followed by breakout sessions.  The hallways leading to the various rooms were circumscribed by booths from various government agencies and NGOs, each providing information on topics such as how to handle endangered species, what’s next for project construction, and considering light pollution as a serious problem for our Floridian ecosystems.  We would all take a break for lunch around 2 pm, again hosted by a speaker, and we would round out the day with dinner where a guest politician would speak about the latest endeavor they’re going to tackle and would provide motivational words for us.

While listening to the various speakers, there seemed to be a distinguishing factor in rhetoric.  I’m not quite sure what it indicates, but there certainly were some people that spoke in very optimistic, energetic, and accomplished terms while there were others that spoke in terms that alluded to a dire state of affairs, where urgency was necessary, and the process was problematic at times.  Anecdotally, if you’re in agriculture or project construction, you’ll say that things are going according to plan, and if you’re in activism, things aren’t looking so great.  I think this is a careful balance to maintain, because we want a sense of urgency to stoke action, but also want to maintain support from congress and the public. 

Being involved in Everglades restoration in any capacity means that you’re going to have to deal with really complicated issues on multiple levels.  Fortunately, there are people that have identified problems and are working on them, even if those orientations and priorities are disparate and conflicting at times.  We’re probably a big mess, but we’re a big mess getting things done.  Such is the human condition, I suppose.