Everglades Foundation

The Everglades Foundation was co-founded by billionaire financier Paul Tudor Jones II. Both the foundation and Jones have been scrutinized for associations with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who in 2022, opposed a major development bill that threatened Everglades conservation efforts seemingly on behalf of Captains for Clean Water, an environmentalist advocacy group with ties to the Everglades Foundation. ¹

In June 2025, the foundation hosted the America’s Everglades Summit at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, bringing together more than 300 attendees (including officials from the Trump administration, members of the U.S. Congress, Tribal leaders, scientists, and business leaders) to advocate for continued federal funding of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). ²

Background

The Everglades Foundation was incorporated in 1993 by billionaire financier Paul Tudor Jones II and the late George Barley, a seventh-generation Floridian and real-estate developer. Jones and Barley co-founded the organization after witnessing the collapse of the Florida Bay fishery in 1992, which they attributed to degraded water quality and disrupted water flow from agricultural drainage and canal construction in the Everglades watershed. The organization operated initially as a grantmaking and scientific research entity, funding studies on Everglades water quality and ecology and supporting smaller conservation groups. ^{1 3}

As of 2026, the Everglades Foundation was listed as a client of the Everglades Law Center, a left-of-center public-interest law firm that uses litigation, advocacy, and negotiation to oppose development and resource-use decisions it claims will affect South Florida ecosystems. ⁴

Activities

CERP Advocacy

The Everglades Foundation funds scientific research, public education, and policy advocacy related to restoring the Everglades ecosystem. As of 2026, the Foundation was said to be working with government agencies, businesses, and nonprofit partners to continue advancing the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), a 50-project federal and state effort authorized by the U.S. Congress in 2000. ^{1 5 6}

The Foundation has been a consistent advocate for federal and state appropriations for CERP. The Foundation’s CEO, Eric Eikenberg, publicly praised the fiscal year 2023 federal omnibus appropriations bill, which included a record $447 million for CERP, as well as the Florida Legislature’s 2024-2025 budget, which included more than $740 million for Everglades restoration. ^{7 8}

In June 2025, the Everglades Foundation hosted the America’s Everglades Summit in Washington, D.C. to mark the 25th anniversary of CERP’s authorization. The event was held at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and brought together more than 300 attendees (including officials from the Trump administration, members of the U.S. Congress, Tribal leaders, scientists, and business leaders) to advocate continued federal funding of CERP.²

Paul Tudor Jones delivered the introductory speech on the importance of the Everglades for the Florida economy and U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum delivered the keynote speech. Other speakers included U.S. Reps. Brian Mast (R-FL) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), the latter of whom received campaign funding from Paul Tudor Jones in 2025. At the summit, the Foundation released an economic study conducted with Earth Economics that claimed that the Greater Everglades has provided $1 trillion in terms of “ecosystem service value” over 50 years, and supports a large number of businesses and economic forces in Florida. ²

Opposition to Senate Bill 2508

In 2022, Captains for Clean Water (CCW), an environmentalist nonprofit, worked with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to oppose Senate Bill 2508, a bill that would have altered many existing state commitments that critics claimed would jeopardize the preservation of the Everglades, including removing mandatory spending on the Everglades and extending water access for commercial purposes. CCW members wrote 156,000 emails and made 1,500 phone calls to legislators, and attended a press conference with Governor DeSantis. ^{9 10} Governor DeSantis vetoed the bill in June 2022. ¹⁰

The Capitolist, a Florida political news site, also reported that Everglades Foundation co-founder Paul Tudor Jones made a $250,000 contribution to Governor DeSantis’s political committee in the period immediately preceding the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 2508. ¹¹

According to the state political news site Florida Politics, CCW had links to the Everglades Foundation. From 2016 to 2020, CCW received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Everglades Foundation, ^{12 13 14 15 16} and members of CCW regularly attended Everglades Foundation meetings and events. ¹⁷

In 2022, the Florida Senate Appropriations Committee questioned CFCW on its ties to the Everglades Foundation after CFCW protested SB 2508 before the committee. While CFCW co-founder Dan Andrews reportedly attempted to distance himself from the Everglades Foundation, an investigative news outlet claimed there were many parallels between CFCW’s rhetoric and messaging from the Everglades Foundation, while the Fort Myers News-Press noted there were financial ties between the Everglades Foundation and the Florida chapters of the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club. Additionally, an Instagram post revealed a meeting between CFCW members and the CEO of the Everglades Foundation, Eric Eikenberg. ^{18 19}

Controversies

Disputes with Sugar Producers

The Everglades Foundation has been in a longstanding conflict with Florida sugar producers over access to land and water in southern Florida. The conflict likely originates with the 1996 Save Our Everglades campaign that advocated implementing a tax of one cent per pound of sugar produced in Florida to contribute to conservation efforts. The campaign was almost entirely financed by Everglades Foundation co-founder Paul Tudor Jones. Sugar-industry representatives claimed Jones had violated campaign-finance laws with his expenditures and was attempting to disrupt the sugar market to profit off trading on commodity price volatility. A Florida state agency ruled in Jones’s favor in 1996. ^{20  21}

In 2017, a consortium of sugarcane farmers accused the Everglades Foundation of commissioning a report with artificially deflated property values of coastal areas of Fort Myers and Stuart, Florida, to make an alleged connection between agriculture run-off and falling property values. The sugar growers claimed that property values increased substantially despite problems caused by unusually high rainfall.  ^{22 23}

As of 2026, the foundation opposed a proposal by the Fanjul family (owners of Florida Crystals, a large sugarcane-refining company) and their competitors at U.S. Sugar to convert up to 8,632 acres of sugarcane fields adjacent to the federally funded Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir into a limestone rock mine. Conservationists, including the Everglades Foundation, argued that the mine could contaminate the reservoir with untreated water and undermine CERP’s restoration goals. In February 2026, Florida state regulators approved the first phase of the project, covering 1,337 acres. ³

Captains for Clean Water (CFCW), a group that had been previously funded by the Everglades Foundation and had had various meetings with the Foundation’s leadership, opposed the proposed mine on social media. CFCW supporters were so hostile against sugar industry personnel that in June 2025, Hendry County Sheriff Steve Whidden (R) issued a public statement on Facebook accusing CFCW of having “fueled hostility and provoked violent rhetoric.” An unnamed source familiar with the situation said the social media posts of CFCW led one person to make a threat against South Florida Water Management District Executive Director Drew Bartlett. ^{24 25 26}

A piece published by the center-right Florida Voice News argued that the project would expand water storage capacity south of Lake Okeechobee (the same goal CFCW had long advocated for) and that opposition to it contradicted the organization’s stated mission. ²⁴

Lawsuit Against Former Employee

In 2022, a lawsuit was settled between the Everglades Foundation and former employee Thomas van Lent, who was accused of stealing or destroying documents containing trade secrets (including business activities, donor lists, and research) that were allegedly taken from the organization after he quit earlier in the year. Van Lent worked at the Everglades Foundation for almost 18 years, ending as director of science and policy. ⁹ He claimed that he left the Everglades Foundation because it had “lost its way” and sworn “fealty” to Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL). ²⁷

Scrutiny of Relationship with Ron DeSantis

A March 2026 investigative report by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Rolling Stone claimed that the Everglades Foundation, under Erik Eikenberg’s leadership, cultivated its alliance with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) at the expense of scientific integrity. According to the report, foundation staff contacted by the interviewers believed the organization had overstated the benefits of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir (a key CERP project) to maintain political access to Governor DeSantis. The report claimed that six members of the foundation’s science staff departed between 2021 and 2022. Former senior scientist Thomas van Lent, who left in 2021, told the outlets that foundation leadership suspended their doubts while ignoring and opposing their staff to nurture influence with the DeSantis administration. “That’s why everyone left,” he said. ²⁸

Financials

In 2023, the Everglades Foundation reported revenues of $17,737,691, total expenses of $13,449,771, and net assets of $50,338,941. ²⁹

The Everglades Foundation gave an estimated $275,000 to Captains for Clean Water between 2016 and 2023. ³⁰

According to OpenSecrets, in 2021, the Everglades Foundation spent $120,000 on lobbying. The following year, the organization spent $60,000. ³¹ The organization did not report federal lobbying activity for the 2024 election cycle. ³²

Leadership

Paul Tudor Jones

The Everglades Foundation was co-founded by billionaire investor and philanthropist Paul Tudor Jones, who made his fortune with the Tudor Investment Corporation during the 1988 market crash and later the popping of the Japanese stock-market bubble. In 1988, Jones co-founded the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity focused on combatting poverty in New York City. ³³ He also co-founded the Excellence Boys Charter School, the first all-boys charter school in the United States. ³⁴

Jones has traditionally supported Republican and Democratic candidates. He called President Donald Trump “the greatest salesman in the history of this country,” but also praised former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s (D) presidential campaign. ^{35 36} He previously financially supported then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) in their presidential campaigns. . ^{37 38 39 40 41}

Jones was a friend of film producer Harvey Weinstein and sat on the board of the Weinstein Company. In 2017, Weinstein was accused by more than 100 women of sexual harassment and assault. In December 2017, it was revealed that Jones had written an email to Weinstein a few months earlier expressing support and the belief that “this will go away sooner than you think and it will be forgotten.” After the revelation, Jones publicly denounced Weinstein. ⁴² In response to the revelation, Women United Now launched a petition demanding that the Everglades Foundation remove him from its board. ⁴³

Erik Eikenberg

As of 2026, Erik Eikenberg was the chief executive officer of the Everglades Foundation, a position he had held since 2012. Eikenberg previously served as chief of staff to former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and former U.S. Rep. E. Clay Shaw, Jr. (R-FL), the latter of whom authored the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. ⁴⁴