Restoring the River of Grass: The $1 Trillion Business Case for the Everglades
- The Everglades Foundation
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
November 20, 2025
Florida’s economic future flows through the Everglades.
It is not only the source of drinking water for nine million residents across the South Florida region, but it also has a direct impact on our tourism, real estate values, and more.
The Everglades generates over $1 trillion in value and nearly $31.5 billion in annual economic benefits for the region, according to the central finding of the Everglades Foundation’s recent report, Thriving Everglades, Thriving Economy: Nature’s Value in the Everglades.
Dr. Meenakshi Chabba, Ecosystem and Resilience Scientist and one of the report’s authors, puts it plainly: “Miami and South Florida wouldn’t exist without the Everglades.”
The reason is simple. “It is the water that we drink, the one we shower with, as well as the one that we run our businesses with,” she notes in our recent Opportunity Miami Interview.
Each year, rainfall is absorbed into the sponge-like landscape of the Everglades and delivered to the Biscayne Aquifer—our lifeline for clean, affordable water.
Some fun facts: The Everglades is the world’s largest subtropical wilderness, the largest mangrove ecosystem in the western hemisphere, and one of only two places on Earth where alligators and crocodiles coexist.
Read the full Opportunity Miami article:
Watch the Opportunity Miami interview:
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