"As this area develops, being able to tell how we’re affecting the environment—it’s important," says Adams. "It’s important to get a baseline now."

Adams’ research follows the life cycles of snook in both natural and degraded estuaries, connecting habitat usage from larva to maturity. Based in a Mote field station on Pine Island, Adams follows the lives of the fish by tagging them and recording their movements as they swim over submerged antennae.

So far, Adams’ data suggests that fish in degraded habitats have a tougher struggle for survival than those in natural habitats. He actually found fish that swam 10 miles from a degraded creek to a healthy creek. None of the fish from the healthy creeks have shown up in degraded creeks. In a state with a $5.4 billion recreational fishing industry, Adams’ snook studies are important for commercial reasons along with conservation. The health of the snook population reflects the health of the rest of their environment, and Florida’s estuaries show symptoms of a damaged system.

"What we’re seeing here is not unique," says Adams. What is unique is the opportunity in the early warning signs. There’s still time to manage pollution runoff from streets and lawns, and incorporate water flow considerations in development. "A conservation effort usually doesn’t emerge until things are really bad," says Adams. "Preventive medicine can still be practiced here."

"We had foam this thick floating into the canal," says Maureen, holding her hands about eight inches apart. "We literally had millions of tons of dead fish around our island," adds Mike. When they realized no one else had Sanibel waterways on their radar, says Mike, "We said, ‘that’s it, we’ve gotta do something.’"

The Valiquettes banded together with other island residents to form PURRE. They learned that dumping nutrient-heavy Okeechobee run-off causes toxic algae blooms in the Caloosahatchee. "That foam was probably caused by fermentation of the seagrass," Maureen says.

As they researched the situation, the pair began to question the the Department of Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to dump more water from Lake O’ into the river. "They’re also de-listing protected waters," says Maureen.

The two may have started in their own back yard, but they now work with organizations on both coasts as well as business and government leaders from all sides of the Okeechobee issue. They support restoring natural water patterns by building filtration plants and enlarged flow ways as an alternative to the Okeechobee reservoir plans. "Let’s not build a bunch of little bathtubs of algae," says Mike. "We want water put where Mother Nature intended it."

"This is an old Girl Scout camp," says Ellen Peterson nodding towards the dense foliage outside her living room window in Estero. It’s appropriate that this lifelong activist lives in such a lush environment with a collection of native bromeliads and a small creek running through her back yard. "I’m gonna turn this place into a sort of spiritual retreat."

It wouldn’t be Peterson’s first time restoring the charm of an Old Florida landmark. Now 83, she’s been a member (and now chairs the local chapter) of the Sierra Club, helped found Save Our Creeks—the group that won the battle to preserve Fisheating Creek just west of Lake Okeechobee—and serves on the board of the Responsible Growth Management Coalition for sustainable development. As a demonstrator in the civil rights movement, "I got myself thrown in the pokey," she says with characteristic pluck.

It’s not that Peterson has spent her life looking for causes; the retired Edison College counselor simply has a crusader gene. When she sees injustice, ecological or otherwise, says Peterson, "I think, ‘Well, somebody oughtta do something.’"

With that attitude Peterson identifies development as the biggest problem facing Southwest Florida. "It’s destroying our environment and our road system," she says. Her latest endeavors include supporting green initiatives in local government, but she knows she can’t make it happen on her own. "People have to be willing to be more vocal."

"An educational institution can be part of a cultural revolution," says Jim Wohlpart. As associate dean of Florida Gulf Coast University’s College of Arts and Sciences, he is an active agitator in that revolution for students, encouraging them to take lessons in ecology and sustainability and apply them outside the classroom.

It’s an experience he wishes he’d had in college. Wohlpart grew up in the mountains of Tennessee where he was aware of the nature around him and had a special affinity for the call of the red-tailed hawk. But he lost touch with that connection during his academic career. In 1994, after finishing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Tennessee, he was offered a job creating curriculum for FGCU.

Ted Below didn’t set out to be an ornithologist.

"I moved down here in 1955 and was basically not interested in birds," he says. That was until Below’s mother, an avid birdwatcher, got him into the habit of counting birds. By 1982 the former plumbing contractor turned his hobby into a second full-time career as an avian ecologist with Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

"I have been studying coastal water birds for the last 35 years," he says now, sitting in his Naples office. He’s collected more than 3,600 censuses and logged nearly 100,000 miles in a small boat while tracking populations of pelicans, gulls, terns, ospreys and other species along 60 miles of Gulf Coast.

Below’s studies have been used to identify important bird habitats on sandbars and mangrove islands around Marco, gaining protected status for several local avian haunts. His massive, longitudinal studies earned him a Wildlife Conservationist of the Year award from the Florida Wildlife Federation.

While a few avian populations—like ospreys—have increased, he’s charted steady decreases in pelicans and other marine birds. "At Naples’ beach, the bird use has declined since 1984," he says. The obvious cause is increased human interaction and coastal development, but because there are so many variables, says Below, "the effect of it is hard to prove [scientifically]."

"I don’t really see much light at the end of the tunnel," Below says. He sees the very act of snowbirds flocking to the beauty and lifestyle of Southwest Florida as a threat to the environment they came to enjoy. "You need to stop development," he says. "You can’t stop development."