In the last few decades, the United States has devoted enormous effort and billions of dollars towards restoring some of our most important ecosystems such as the Great Lakes, Florida Everglades (Everglades), and Chesapeake Bay. Restoration efforts have originated, in part, from controversies surrounding water supply and quality, federal laws (i.e., laws that protect endangered species or regulate water quality, and others), sport and commercial fishing, and environmental degradation. Ecosystem restoration initiatives have typically been accompanied with high expectations and publicity. Funding for these initiatives can amount to billions of dollars for each, and the duration of these initiatives can be 25 years or more. For example, in the San Francisco Bay-Sacramento/San Joaquin River Deltas (California Bay-Delta) a restoration program known as CALFED is expected to cost more than $7.8 billion, with more than $2.4 billion expected from the federal government, just for the first stage (7 years) of a 30-year restoration effort. Issues such as the coordination of multi-agency task forces, public participation, allocation of ecosystem resources (e.g., water supplies), and the science behind restoration projects have all been debated in ecosystem restoration efforts. Perhaps the greatest issue in ecosystem restoration efforts is that restoration can create "losers." People may lose (or perceive loss of) property, income, and potential income among other things, as a result of restoration activities. In some cases, the threat of stakeholder loss has resulted in controversies or even barriers to restoration work. Ecosystem restoration is a process or activity that initiates the recovery of an ecosystem with respect to its health, integrity, and sustainability. Ecosystem restoration implies the recognition of impairment or disturbance to an ecosystem to the extent that remediation is necessary. In most cases, ecosystems that require restoration have been degraded, destroyed, or transformed directly or indirectly by human activities. For example, an ecosystem can deteriorate from polluted waterways, endangered species, transformed landscapes (e.g., forests to agricultural fields), and human development (e.g., urban areas, roads, or housing). Ecosystem restoration attempts to reverse the deterioration of an ecosystem, and to some extent, return it towards its "pre-disturbed" or Pre-Columbian state. Ecosystem restoration does not necessarily mean the restoration of an ecosystem to its original state. Rather, ecosystem restoration means human management that allows desirable uses without the negative impacts being incurred under the pre-restoration regime. Once an ecosystem is recovering under a desired trajectory, human management is important. Management may be required to counteract invasive species, the impact of human activities, climate change, and other unforeseeable events. One primary unknown of ecological restoration is the actual process of how to do it. Studying and monitoring current restoration initiatives and recording the lessons from these initiatives can provide insights for restoration. Policy makers creating or changing ecosystem restoration legislation may benefit from an understanding of the positive and negative aspects of previous ecosystem restoration projects. In this paper, key policy components of the ecosystem restoration effort in the South Florida ecosystem, which includes the Everglades, are examined to provide potential lessons for other ecosystem restoration efforts. Ecosystem restoration efforts pose several challenges for governance. In most cases, large-scale ecosystem restoration initiatives cross political boundaries, communities, and agency jurisdictions. Generally several stakeholders, ranging from environmentalists to users to government agencies, have an interest in restoration and its benefits. Restoration efforts can result in changes to farming practices and urban development; alterations in water supplies and access to other natural resources (e.g., minerals and timber); and laws that create programs to mitigate environmental damage and improve infrastructure. Because of the diverse interest in restoration, past restoration efforts have often been fragmented in dealing with specific problems or consequences of ecosystem degradation, instead of working on the root causes affecting the entire ecosystem. The federal government has a special role in coordinating multi-jurisdictional ecosystem restoration efforts in large part because of its involvement in altering natural systems (e.g., flood control in the Everglades and water transfers to the Central Valley in California). The federal government also must respond to legal obligations under laws that protect endangered species, and water quality. Additionally, it has the capacity to create multi-agency task forces, employ the expertise of multiple federal agencies (e.g., Fish and Wildlife Service with respect to endangered species or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for construction), and provide funds for restoration projects. Congress plays a key role in large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts. Congress is generally responsible for authorizing federal agency involvement in restoration efforts and establishing guidelines for managing and implementing restoration projects. In some cases, such as in the Everglades, Congress has a role in authorizing individual restoration projects and their guidelines for implementation and management. Ecosystem restoration efforts are generally based on improving or rehabilitating one or more ecosystem services (e.g., water supply or habitat recovery for plant and animal populations). Congress can create guidelines for allocating ecosystem services (e.g., regulating water supplies for farmers and the environment), or in some cases, Congress may ensure the delivery of ecosystem services through legislative provisions (e.g., water supply assurances for farmers). Lastly, Congress is responsible for authorizing and appropriating federal funds for ecosystem restoration. After nearly 40 years of individual environmental restoration projects in South Florida, the federal government along with state, local, and tribal entities has begun a collaborative effort to restore the entire South Florida ecosystem. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), authorized in the Water Resources Development Act of 2000 (WRDA 2000); ( P.L. 106-541 ), was a major step toward coordinated, multi-agency ecosystem restoration. Title VI of WRDA 2000 outlines the coordination among various stakeholders involved in the restoration process, identifies funding responsibilities, and authorizes the creation of programmatic regulations, which will detail the implementation process of restoration projects. Title VI of WRDA 2000 also contains several policy functions intended to facilitate inter-agency coordination, satisfy stakeholder demands, and ensure the goal of ecosystem restoration. In some cases these policy functions are complex and have potential drawbacks, yet in other cases, these functions have potential benefits and could be used as policy models for other ecosystem restoration projects. The restoration of the Everglades represents a recent effort to deal with the myriad of issues related to ecosystem restoration. Described as the largest environmental project in American history, the restoration effort in the South Florida ecosystem is expected to cost more than $14 billion and last 30 years. Restoration efforts in South Florida have several attributes similar to restoration elsewhere: multiple stakeholders are involved, including the federal, state, and local governments; water supply and distribution is a central issue; the effort is considered a solution to standing controversies or legal obligations; and environmental restoration is promoted as the main goal. Experiences in restoration efforts in South Florida might be viewed as a "test case" for future restoration projects. Indeed, an examination of what has been effective and what has been less effective in restoration efforts in South Florida may give insights on how to proceed in the successful development of other ecosystem restoration projects. Like many wetlands in the United States, the wetlands of South Florida, including the Everglades have been altered by the growing demand for urban and agricultural water, the encroachment of development into sensitive areas, attempts to control flooding by state and federal governments, and invasion of non-native species. The South Florida ecosystem supports six million people, a huge tourism industry, a large agricultural economy, and a wide array of unique flora and fauna. The South Florida ecosystem covers 18,000 square miles and consists of a network of sub-tropical wetland landscapes, which once stretched from Orlando to Florida Bay, approximately 200 miles (see Figure 1 ). It is also home to the Everglades, which are regarded as one of the world's most valuable and unique wetlands. The Everglades are located in the southern portion of the South Florida ecosystem that consists of disjointed freshwater marshes between the southern tip of Lake Okeechobee and the Florida Bay. An important ecological process in the South Florida ecosystem is the movement of freshwater from Lake Okeechobee south to the Florida Bay in a moving "sheet" that replenishes marshlands and swamps. This shallow sheet of water moved across the Everglades a few inches per second and in addition to rainfall was responsible for recharging the Biscayne Aquifer and nourishing plant and animal life. Human development and manipulation of water flows have disrupted the natural flow of this sheet of water. Partly in response to flooding and the need for agricultural lands, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) was asked by Congress to divert water in the Everglades. Specifically, water flow in the Everglades was altered to control flooding, to open land for agriculture, and to provide water supplies for urban areas. The cornerstone of this effort was the Flood Control Project Act of 1948. This project initiated several years of construction by the Corps and the Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District to create nearly 1000 miles of canals, 720 miles of levees, and over 200 water control structures (e.g., dikes, dams and pumping stations). In addition, nearly 700,000 acres of land were drained and designated for agricultural use in what is now called the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). Another 900,000 acres were used to construct five Water Conservation Areas (WCAs), which were designed to recharge well fields, prevent flooding and provide habitat for plant and animal life. The man-made water distribution system created in South Florida led to environmental degradation. This system reduced water flow to the Everglades by nearly two-thirds by channelizing water to agricultural and urban areas, and the Atlantic Ocean. The alteration of water flow to the Everglades is widely believed to have degraded the environment.