 Conservationists concerned about the Everglades have been a vocal minority ever since Miami was a young city . South Florida 's first and perhaps most enthusiastic naturalist was Charles Torrey Simpson , who retired from the Smithsonian Institution to Miami in 1905 when he was 53 . Nicknamed " the Sage of Biscayne Bay " , Simpson wrote several books about tropical plant life around Miami . His backyard contained a tropical hardwood hammock , which he estimated he showed to about 50 @,@ 000 people . Though he tended to avoid controversy regarding development , in Ornamental Gardening in Florida he wrote , " Mankind everywhere has an insane desire to waste and destroy the good and beautiful things this nature has lavished upon him " . 
