"$100 Million Buy Will Preserve Open Lands"

"The Obama administration on Thursday will pump $100 million into a little-known program that is going a long way toward redefining Everglades restoration.

The money won’t go to build reservoirs. It will go to ranchers.

In exchange, the ranchers will give up development rights to as much as 24,000 acres — some 37 square miles — in four counties northwest of Lake Okeechobee and preserve them under permanent conservation easements. Plans call for eventually converting what is often marginal pastureland back into wetland, where it will provide habitat for wildlife and absorb damaging pollutants that now trickle into Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades."

Curtis Morgan reports for the Miami Herald August 11, 2011.