Karina Balman
Period 2
8/28/19
Gladesman and Their Fight:
“These are the people’s parks owned by the young and old…” Harry s. Truman.
This is not true especially in the Everglades. The Gladesman culture is diminishing
in the everglades because the national park service (N.P.S) is limiting traditional
use in the Everglades. I have been fighting this for 16 years.
Gladesman are people who build small homes in the everglades. The built “glade-skiffs” (airboats); small boats that could navigate through canals, and water ways
deep in the ‘glades. These people would leave month at a time, to build camps
while they hunted and fished in almost complete isolation. They developed a
relationship with the land. With this in mind, the national park service came up
with an Off-road Vehicle(ORV) plan. In that plan the NPS put primary trails in the
Big Cypress. That plan also promised secondary trails. Former Superintendent
Ramos set up a meeting with a few Gladesman by the name: Eric Kimmel, Gus
Guell, and my father Harley Balman. These Gladesman showed Ramos where they wanted the secondary trails to lead to. It has been 9 years since that meeting and
the Gladesman still doesn’t have the secondary trails that have been promised in
the plan.
Now the Gladesman must follow rules and regulations. Some of the rules are:
individuals occupying a site may bring camping and/or hunting equipment…
one day before the opening of each of the following hunting season and must be removed… one day after each seasons end, those hunting… must wear at least
500 square inches of florescent orange, and dogs are not permitted in the back-
country areas. Bird dogs and water fowl retrievers are allowed for hunting purposes during the respective seasons. Some of the regulations are: ATC’s are limited to the numbers of riders intended by the manufacture. Safety belts are to be worn on
vehicles equipped for wheeled vehicles equipped with them, speed limites-15 miles
per hour for wheeled vehicles, 30 miles per hour for airboats, and vehicle must
meet specifications, permits requirements and be of the proper type for each unit,
and pay $100 for a ORV sticker. There are more rules and regulations found in the
ORV handbook.
The Gladesman are the users of the land. The national park service made an ORV
plan and promised secondary trails and fail to do so. The Gladesman must now
follow specific rules and regulations. “I feel like a keeper of the everglades. Its my
heart and soul… if they take this away …then nobody is going take the next
generation out to see what we see; My Everglades”-Donald E Onstead.