Clewiston lies on the southern edge of Florida's Lake Okeechobee. It owes its survival to a dike built around the lake that holds back the water. The area is home to some of the best freshwater fishing in the world. It is also home to highly productive agricultural enterprises that support the local economy and provide fresh vegetables and other agricultural commodities year-round. It is part of the Everglades system, a natural wonder whose existence depends on timely flows of fresh water and whose beauty has enchanted the world for decades. The water needs of the Everglades and the interests of multiple human stakeholders collide in and around Lake Okeechobee. It is a seemingly intractable conflict that has persisted for decades and flares up on a regular basis, each crisis hardening the positions and statements of the stakeholders it affects. Manage the "Lake O" system one way and the berm and all it protects are threatened; manage it another way and estuaries on east and west coasts are threatened as occurred recently. Trust among stakeholders seems minimal, and the Everglades system as a whole continues to show signs of collapse. There is no resolution in sight.

A short time after returning from Clewiston, I attended a talk by the Reverend Gary Mason of East Belfast, Ireland, a key figure in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that established a lasting peace between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. Belfast is certainly not the Everglades, but I hoped to gain some insight into intractable conflicts from someone who had lived one. At the end of the talk, a student asked him about lessons learned that could be applied to other situations. He paused for a moment and said, "words are powerful things; be careful how you disagree with each other." He then talked about healthy disagreement and how they differ from name calling and the framing of issues in inflammatory ways. He concluded by saying "As a first step, criticize the ills of your own community and suggest better alternatives; it builds trust". I thought about this as I walked home. The Everglades is a problem born of human engineering and management that has forced interest groups into conflict with one another. I have no idea how to resolve it. Perhaps Reverend Mason's suggestion could be a start.