A landmark environmental group founded by Everglades icon Marjory Stoneman Douglas is closing its Miami office, citing declining membership and donations.

But Friends of the Everglades, formed in 1969 to fight a jetport proposed in the Everglades, isn't folding, vowed acting president Connie Washburn.

``We are not gone,'' she said. ``We are regrouping and hope to come back.''

Friends, which once boasted a membership of 4,000-plus, has dropped to about 500 paying members, she said. The board decided it could no longer afford the $750 a month office at 7800 Red Rd. that it had maintained for 15 years.

Unlike Audubon and the Sierra Club chapters, Friends has no national organization to tap, and its staff, aside from an administrator let go last year and a part-time clerk, is comprised entirely of volunteers. But even big-name environmental groups, along with nonprofits of every ilk, have been forced to cut costs. ``We had a very hard year economically, as did everybody,'' Washburn said.

Also, Friends' most ardent watchdog, Juanita Greene, a former Miami Herald environmental reporter who had picked up where her friend Douglas had left off, retired to Tallahassee -- a major loss for the entire Everglades activist community.

Alan Farago, a longtime activist who writes a blog, Eye On Miami, will take over Greene's role as conservation chair. Other board members also are working on plans to expand membership and revenue.

One major expense has been bankrolling a lawsuit challenging state water managers' practice of pumping polluted suburban storm water into the Everglades, a case reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court and sent back for further hearings.

Washburn, a retired Miami-Dade teacher who started a Young Friends of the Everglades program while teaching at Howard Drive Elementary School, also hopes to expand education programs the group offers in schools. She said many students have never visited the Glades and know little about it.

``We feel we are reaching a very underserved community.,'' she said.

The group will continue to maintain and update its website, www.everglades.org.

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