White Ibis

Postcard US-3612556 to the Netherlands shows a flock of white ibis probes the grassflat to unearth a meal of crustaceans. These birds gather together at dusk in showy, spectacular roosts in the Everglades, Florida. The 39 cent matching stamp was one of the South Florida Wetland stamps issued by USPS in 2005.

Obama Delivers Earth Day Messages in Florida

President Obama traveled to the Everglades in South Florida earlier today to highlight the impact of climate change on the American economy. The irony is that in Florida, where rising sea levels pose an imminent threat to 30% of the state's beaches in the next 85 years, state officials have taken an Ostrich Policy on climate change by banning the terms “climate change”, “global warming” and "sustainability" in any official state communications, emails, or reports.

Obama took a tour on the Anhinga Trail in the park on wooden boardwalk over vast 1.5 million-acre wetlands that are served as habitats to diverse species such as alligators and whooping cranes. Shown on the outgoing postcard US-3263777 to the Netherlands, a whooping crane can be more than 4 feet or 1.2 meters tall when standing erect. Indigenous to Florida but rare, whooping cranes were re-introduced in the mid-1990s to stimulate population recovery. These species are threaten as their habitats are impacted by salt water seeping inland caused by rising sea levels, which offers a vivid illustration over the relationship between theoretical arguments about carbon emissions and real-life implications. Studies also reveal that rising sea levels are threatening an $82 billion state tourism economy, and drinking water for more than 7 million Florida residents — more than a third of Florida's population.

President Obama is using his trip, timed to coincide with Earth Day, to push for an environment agenda that will cut carbon emissions by 28% by 2025 in an attempt to alleviate the impacts of climate change.

Water and Sustainable Development

The United Nations designated March 22 as the World Water Day in Agenda 21 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. The first World Water Day was observed on March 22, 1993. 22 years later, the theme for World Water Day 2015 is Water and Sustainable Development.

With a tag line "a day to celebrate, a day to change, a day to prepare," World Water Day is a day to celebrate water; a day to make a difference for the members of the global population who suffer from water related issues; and a day to prepare for how we manage water in the future.

Postcard US-2680017 to Australia shows a swamp view of the Everglades, a tropical wetlands ecosystem in South Florida. Sustainability was a major component in the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan approved by Congress in 2000. A first-of-its-kind economic impact report has detailed the benefits of Everglades restoration that results in an increase in job creation, real estate values and water quality.

The theme for 2014 World Water Day last year was Water and Energy.

Lake Okeechobee

Postcard US-3223053 to Switzerland shows a satellite image of Lake Okeechobee in Florida, the second largest freshwater lake contained entirely within the contiguous 48 states in the U.S. Lake Michigan is the largest.

For the largest lakes of the all 50 U.S. States by area including freshwater and saltwater lakes, if the area accounted for the lake includes the area partially in Canada or Mexico, Lake Superior is the largest while Lake Okeechobee ranks tenth.

Okeechobee covers 1,900 square kilometers or 730 sq miles, with an average depth of 3 meters or 9 feet. It is the headwaters of the Everglades wetland ecosystem.

Everglades Wind

Postcard US-2651093 to Spain shows a colorful windy scene at the Everglades in Florida, from an original oil painting by Florida artist Mazz.

The Everglades are a large wetland area in the South Florida, where the Kissimmee River flows into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee, then discharges into a 60-mile or 97-km wide and more than 100 mile or 160-km long swamp. The southward slow-moving water, as writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas described as "River of Grass", eventually reaches Florida Bay in the south. It is a complex inter-connected and inter-dependent eco-systems that include sawgrass marshes, freshwater lakes, cypress swamps, estuary forests, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rockland, and marine .

Since Congress formed the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control Project in 1947, the metropolitan areas in South Florida have grown substantially and near 50% of the original Everglades has been developed to farmlands or urban areas. There have been increased environmental awareness since UNESCO designated the Everglades as one of only three wetland areas of global importance in the 1970s. Restoration began in the 1980s and the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), a plan to restore the Everglades, was approved by Congress in 2000.

The postcard can be purchased at Zazzle and the original oil painting can be purchased at ArtistGalleria.com.

World Turtle Day

May 23rd has been the World Turtle Day since 2000. It was initiated by American Tortoise Rescue to celebrate and protect turtles and tortoises and their ever shrinking habitats around the world.

The postcard US-1532121 was issued by SFWMD, featuring a Florida box turtle living in moist woodlands and floodplains in the greater Everglades. Turtles are the only toothless reptiles, but have beaks with biting edges.

Before I moved to Las Vegas, NV from Florida in 2006, I was aware of the problem caused by street lights to the baby sea turtles during the hatchling season. Those baby sea turtles mistook street lights as the rising sun, so they moved towards city streets and were often crashed by cars, rather than headed to the ocean. I knew there were efforts to install turtle-friendly lights along A1A, a Florida State Road running mostly along the Atlantic Ocean. However, to my surprise, I found out the problem is still serious today. A Youtube video documented disoriented sea turtle hatchlings in Broward County Florida caused by illegal lighting in the summer of 2011. It was estimated that one in every three hatchlings had gone to the street lights instead of the ocean.

In Florida, sea turtles come ashore to nest from May to late October. You can learn how to help this season in 2013 by visiting their web site SeaTurtleOP.org.

What is the difference between a tortoise and a turtle since they are both reptiles from the family of Testudines? Tortoises dwell only on land while turtles can dwell well in the water. Therefore, in the Mojave Desert around Las Vegas, we only have tortoises.

A Regal Great Egret at the Everglades

US-1505382 was the very first card I sent out. It features a regal great egret in the Everglades, Florida, USA.  I picked up the card, issued by the South Florida Water Management District, for Marleen1979 from Netherlands as she said she liked birds. The regal great egret, once nearly destroyed for its fashionable plumes, is a symbol of conservation today.