We are in the little plane.

All right, you guys ready?

Ready to go.

Let's do this.

From a thousand feet above the ground, South Florida looks like an endless soggy expanse of shifting colors.

As far as the eye can see, it's just flat, greens, yellows, and blue where the water is.

To the west, agriculture, miles and miles

of citrus groves, orchid farms, and sugarcane fields.

This is a side of Miami that most people will never see.

To the east, industry, the shimmering skylines of Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami stacked up along the coast.

More than 5 million people living just along that stretch. It's hard to imagine, but less than 200 years ago, almost

everything I can see through the window of this is

is still the little airplane was underwater at least part of the year.

This is Steve Davis.

He's a wetland ecologist and my tour guide for the morning.

Steve's also the chief science officer at the Everglades Foundation.

It's a non-profit focused on restoring and protecting this ecosystem, which used to cover almost all of South Florida.

This area that is now we see developed, that all used to be Everglades.

A 60 mile wide blanket of grass, trees, and water that flowed south from present day Orlando to Key West's coral reefs.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas referred to it as the river of grass.

The Everglades was one of the best natural defenses against hurricanes and flooding in the region,

a sponge that could soak up excess water during the rainy season,

...