Defending Florida's State Parks: A Call to Action to Prevent Proposed Development

when you think of Florida what do you think about I know I know a lot of people are like a Florida man or like the politics and things like that but do you ever just think about the beauty of Florida you know the natural landscapes that you see the Everglades you know there there's a lot of different Parks state parks national parks obviously the coast the Gulf of Mexico Coast the Atlantic coast it is beautiful in Florida when you really think about things and that beauty of some of those state parks are in Jeopardy and so I have a call to action today for us to come together as a community and let's defend these Parks so you're going to want to listen to this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast we're protecting Parks folks let's start the show hey everybody welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast I'm your host Andrew Leen and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action and on today's episode we're going to be talking about something that that was actually a listener requested story which to be honest I love these when people reach out to me was like Hey can you cover you know this can you cover that I'm actually working on another story that somebody's asked me to cover I I prioritize this I actually had another interview that's going to go up on next episode but um people are coming to me with some stories that I they want me to cover which I love by the way if you have more stories just hit me up on like LinkedIn or on uh Instagram how to protect the ocean I'd love to help you out with you know putting that story on a bigger platform like on my platform maybe it's not bigger than yours but we need it on all platforms and I've seen this story about the state parks that are in Jeopardy in fact there are nine state parks in Florida that are in Jeopardy from basically development proposals that are up hotels golf courses things like that that's really really disappointing to hear to be honest uh so we're going to be covering that today uh because it's it's it's a call to action now when I was contacted I want to just kind of give a shout out uh to uh Courtney doton who who let me know of this story on LinkedIn uh it's basically state parks threatened with development and there are nine state parks that are threatened I'm going to read out the parks if you're familiar with them or not Anastasia State Park topsale Hill preserve State Park greaton Beach State Park Jonathan Dickinson State Park Honeymoon Island State Park Hillsboro River State Park camp Ellen State Park Park and do uh Dr Von D mitel Ulus Johnson State Park and Oleta River State Park now some of these parks are along the coastline a lot of these Parks actually I know the first two Anastasia and top sale are along the PO Co the coastline Anastasia is just North just south of Jacksonville on the Atlantic side topsale Hill pres uh yeah topsale Hill preserve uh state park is just actually in the Panhandle in the north west side of um of Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico side I wanted tell you how important these parks are to not only the environment but to the people in Florida and and a lot of different people it doesn't matter the political background let's keep the Pol politics out of this for this thing let's think about it from a park standpoint when parks are designated or even are proposed to be designated there's usually a number of reasons to propose that Park often times uh usually the quickest way to get a park you know essentially designated as a park is a cultural moment so it could be uh indigenous or tribal it could be something of cultural importance and I know in in like lakes and and oceans there's like specific shipwrecks or a specific habitat uh on land it could be the same thing it could be a piece of river or a piece of land that's been very important culturally in the past um and so and or like to people or into history and those become state parks pretty quickly because there's a reason everybody's like oh yeah we want to remember that we want to protect from a cultural perspective then there's also the environmental perspective so you know protecting for biodiversity protecting against Land Development but also protecting for security and this is a one that often gets uh gets overlooked a lot of times when we think about parks and this has happened actually not just in Florida but everywhere uh because when you preserve land when you preserve a park like a natural area you're preserving the function of that Park and all the habitats that reside in that Park so a lot of times we don't think about this and and what I mean by that security is that it helps buffer against really anything that happens in nature so if we have a lot of rain you know North like Florida gets a lot of rain flooding happens you you get hurricanes and things like that those Natural Parks become a buffer there's easy drainage because nothing has really been you know paved over nothing's been altered because he can't alter a state park in the way that it's design now and this is one of the problems with this these new proposals and so having those natural areas do their natural ecosystem function which is really really important when we talk about economy when we talk about protection of residences around the park and areas and communities and regions and counties around the parks these are really really important in fact you know coming up to Canada like just to kind of give me a local perspective to talk about something local uh we have the Oak Ridges Marine which is just North of Toronto and it's a green area uh and essentially it is an area where you cannot build on you cannot develop and it's a provincial area that is protected it's the Oak Ridges Marine is what they call it and and that sits north of Toronto and what that does is that helps buffer the rest of Toronto's sort of flooding and river systems and things like that it's not a huge piece as much as it should be but it is a piece that helps sort of the natural processes happen so when we got the big rains in in July and there was a lot of flooding across you know Southern Ontario some of those areas actually did better than others because they had that natural drainage you know the rest of Toronto like downtown Toronto and other parts of Toronto where Rivers have been historically buried and underneath the basically it's it's it's the uh the uh oh gosh I forget the essentially the natural drainage it's essentially like the sewer system not really the sewer system but just I'm I'm blanking on the word right now but it'll come to me uh but it's it's just the storm water drainage so it's a storm water sewers right so when water comes down you know when you pave roads and everything you have these underground like like drainage right you have these storm drains and you know those get blocked that's when you get flooding but the idea is to allow the water to get through and drain down towards the lake or towards you know maybe a natural area a lot of our rivers in Toronto were buried you know historically because we wanted to put in paved roads and things like that so they became part of our our storm water drainage but that doesn't help a lot of times because a lot of times like I mentioned those drainage areas get blocked by leaves or debris or Plastics or pollution or anything like that and you get flooding that occurs and this year we had a lot of flooding in the past like over the last month and and that's been a a huge problem where people have been have to have been rescued in parking lots believe it or not because the water was up to the top of the roof of their cars it's it's a scary situation when we start to take away our natural area so we have these areas like Oak Ridges Marine just north of Toronto we have state parks in Florida to keep those ecosystem functions working properly you know it's not the best case scenario because we want to keep as many natural areas natural and many green spaces green that's why when you always see uh a residence a new residence that's being or a new neighborhood that's being built up there has to be a certain amount of green area to allow natural drainage that's one of the reasons not only for the viewing capabilities and just sort of like people like having seeing like green areas you have to have Greenery to allow for that drainage to happen you know and you have to have storm water ponds in new neighborhoods because you need to have that drainage you need to manage the water that's coming in especially now in the times that we're at where we're seeing increased uh rain and increased storms and increased intensity of storms we're going to need that drainage as much as possible so having these types of parks are extremely important now they're also important for just preserving and conserving the uh taking like a a a proactive approach in preserving biodiversity preserving the animals that are there again that keep the ecosystem ecosystems functioning to help us and all that drainage and all that area to keep it natural in that buffering area right that's what helps all this if we lose those animals we lose those habitats to development we start to lose that Park and we start to lose the essence of the area and we and it's all drainage or it's all paved you know everything gets paved over think about that instead of green you get basically ashalt or concrete or interstates and things like that and yeah it might help traffic a little bit for the time being but then more people are going to move in you're going to get more problems and then you're going to get more flooding and people are going to be more at risk and you're going to get you know climate change happens more and more you're going to get less green areas in state parks that's a that's a problem that's a huge huge problem and a lot of the times I have to admit Florida has a lot of state parks and they're beautiful I've heard many people go down and visit them and they you see them on online talk about how beautiful they are how they love these parks and I'm not just talking about hippies and environmentalists you know and and left leaning people these are like Hunters Fishers it doesn't matter what political part of the spectrum you're on these are people who enjoy nature everybody enjoys nature at some point it'd be very hard pressed to find anybody who doesn't uh enjoy nature there may be a few of you out there and that's fine I get it it's out of your comfort zone and stuff like that but you know a lot of people love being in nature and having those state parks allow for the hiking allow for sort of just the the slowing down you know and and uh I I remember um you know our our our newly lost friend Dr Jane Nichols he used to talk about the slow Coast all the time he created him and his wife created the slow Coast they create a store and just sort of an area where you can just slow down enjoy nature and I you know since his passing I've really thought about that you know going away to a cottage that a couple weeks ago and and just putting away your phones and just enjoying looking out into onto the lakes and looking out onto nature and looking out onto the oceans when you have it in front of you is probably one of the best things that you can do for your your your mental health your natural well-being we all know our mental health is suffering these days right and so we need to protect that we need to make sure that we are in good mental health so we can attack these problems and these issues that we're facing and just be being you know present for our families and our friends and everybody else and just ourselves we need to have nature to have that so when I heard that there are people out there that want to propose developing on these state parks I got angry I got scared there there was a lot of fear and this is not new we've seen this before we've seen uh it was it was I believe it was during the Trump presidency Trump was going to allow uh exploration and and Mining and coal mining in in certain state parks around or federal parks around uh around the US and uh it was actually a lot of people came out and like there were a lot of Republicans that were for that and you know we need to get more fossil fuels and we need to reinvest in those and double down on those and of course you know the whole climate change debate and everything like that was going on but a lot of hunters and Fishers started pressuring Republican Senators to being like like hey what are you doing you're a hunter and Fisher don't you want like we go to our national parks and our parks to hunt and fish and we do it responsibly and we want nature we love being in nature you know as much as people don't like hunting and don't like fishing there are people out there who enjoy that and and but want to protect like they love being in nature that's one of the things that they love doing and and that's part of the process of hunting and fishing you're out there you're probably out there longer than you are catching anything or hunting anything or killing anything and the people who do that are have been in historically have been very you know uh very uh how do you say proactive uh as advocates to protecting these these national parks and state parks so I'm I'm curious to see how many Fishers and hunters will be you know having a say against this and I just want to talk to you and and just let you know about certain aspects and and and I'm going to talk about the call to action because this is really important you know this is something that I've wanted to do a long time here on how to protect the ocean well I mean we were here talking about how to protect the ocean this is Monday this is a new week and we're about to come into a long weekend here in North America and people are like let's let's party let's do this but we have one thing to do we have to protect these national parks it doesn't matter if you're from Florida or not from Florida you can participate and there's a public comment that's going to happen now the meetings the public meetings have in Florida like in person have been postponed for nine Nation nine state parks they've all been postponed uh and so I don't know when this going to be but I am going to share the link so it's the floridas spring council.org and it's going to it's a a full page and it kind of gives you updates of when and where these uh public meetings will be there but here's what some of the developments are Anastasia State Park uh there is a proposed changes to include a resort with up to 350 rooms as well as a disc golf course and pickle ball courts really you know does that really really necessary top sale Hill preserve Park proposed changes uh to include a resort for up to 350 rooms as well as a disc golf course and a pickle ball and pickle ball court so I'm assuming these are the same this is the same company that's going and these are two very different areas one's in the the top sales like I said is in the panhandle of Florida and the other one's just south of Jacksonville uh greaton Beach Park a proposed change of dis a disc golf course and pickle ball courts uh John Dickinson State Park looking at proposed changes uh include multiple golf courses a clubhouse and related facilities encompassing over 1,000 Acres it's 1,000 Acres gone from these state parks you know think about what a a clubhouse would bring or even the land use changes that happen when you put multiple golf courses in the the fertilizers and pesticides that are used to maintain those golf courses how the drainage changes when you put in those golf courses there's a lot lot of difference in there when you put in a a hotel or a resort a 352 350 room Resort plus all the amenities another golf course and a pickle ball course which is basically Paving over natural areas these are big changes um so we have Jonathan Dickinson I I told that's what I told you what that was um there's looking at the Honeymoon Island they never detail what was going on Hillsboro they never detailed Camp Helen never detailed neither it looks like none of the other ones they they've detailed what is proposed to go in there but these changes are brought by the state government so the governor you know of that of that area and and of of Florida and that's you know we know this Governor is not a a person who is for the environment we know he's for big businesses except for Disney of course for different reasons but he's there to you know bring in more money and this and these are like tourist stuff you know these are tourist things to happen now state park is a tourist destination in general it doesn't need to be augmented it doesn't need to be changed the state park in itself is a tourist attraction you don't need to put a resort you don't need to put golf courses like think about the amount of golf courses in Florida anyway when people go down to Florida they golf They golf they don't need more courses they don't need more golf courses to happen and we've seen so many changes to the Natural landscape of Florida uh over the past you know 50 60 years it's definitely changed things Florida in general is at risk of climate change consequences i' I've covered stories before recently you know in the last couple of months where you know we talked about how the groundwater the water in the ground is so dense and it's so high that when flooding happens it happens from the ground up it doesn't happen from the ocean in it happens from the ground up because so saturated that ground with water and it could be sometimes ocean water that it's changing that lands and it's changing sort of the the um the the the permeability of that of that area and sort of the security of that area you're going to see a lot of erosion happen in those areas and the predictions of all the sea level rise models and the ipcc models is that half of Florida is going to be gone at some point in time I don't know when but at some point in time it could be gone now imagine you know a state that's at risk from climate change uh climate change consequences more intense storms coming um flooding and nutrient uh and water quality issues all around and what helps is natural areas that stay natural so these state parks actually help and the natural landscape actually helped changing those L Landscapes even a little bit because these state parks are not huge so changing them and Paving them can have drastic consequences for the areas around them we've already seen some of those changes when Big Sugar decided that they wanted to empty out more and they want to take out some of the the Everglades so that they can put a plant there and then they started to take away uh and and redirect some of the water that was coming of Lake Uchi you know we saw the nutrients increase we saw what happened to the algal blooms and the red tides that eventually came in as well just it's not a good we're not in a good shape in Florida and Florida could be very beautiful it could be amazing but these changes will will probably have problems for water quality down the road we just don't know how we just don't know when but having these changes will drastically change the Landscapes of those state parks and we state parks are there to be state parks they're not there to be a resort they're not there to be you know disc golf courses they're not there to be pickle ball courts right these are there to be natural areas and people enjoy the natural areas by hiking maybe camping a little bit you know there's certain areas that are managed differently and they're there to be enjoyed by everybody including Floridians so Floridians if you know we have a a we are very fortunate to have a lot of people that live in Florida that listen to this podcast and and it's it's great to have those you know that as a community it's time to to you know look at these areas pay attention to when those public comments if you're in those areas go to those public meetings be a voice for those state parks there are a lot of people within within the state government that work on these state parks that are there that will help you you know that will there that are there to be like hey we don't want these changes either I know public sector people they do not want to see these changes the people the Rangers the people who work to protect those parks and those boundaries they are there to protect land they are there to protect the environment so they will have your back at some point we just need to hear from the people from Floridians and if you're outside Florida like I am not even in the country I'm going to send you know some some emails you know maybe some phone calls to the governor's office you know there are a lot of uh there are a lot of people on uh Tik Tok and online that are doing some great things I'm going to give them uh uh just some shoutouts here because I want you guys to um to be able to be able to know who they are because I think it's really important um Carissa Caba who is on Tik Tok she is a great person out of Hawaii she's a great scyon person and conservationist she's great there's also I'm just looking up this person here um it's it's at Wales we I think her name is Erica I don't know her very well but she's been doing uh Erica yeah e r i k and she goes by Wales we so Wales all one were Wales and then we check that out I'll put the link into the show notes to both of those accounts and to both some of those uh posts that they've been putting in they're putting in updates to what's happening I'll put in some Tik toks and some social media posts as well just on what I know but a lot of the information I get are for people like them who are helping me out and uh people like uh like Courtney doton who are helping me out and get and gathering information so you know look them up thank them for the work that they do and and uh you know call to action is go to the website that's in the show notes it's uh it's floridas spring council.org all one word Florida Springs with an S council.org but check out the link in the show notes to get I have the actual page to find out when those meetings are it's very important that we participate in those it's very important that we protect these state parks so that's it for today's episode love to hear what you think you can leave a comment on um on Spotify because we have videos up there as well you can go to YouTube you can leave a comment there I'd love to hear your thoughts on these state parks you can also uh go to any of your favorite podcasts and you know listen to them there but you can hit me up on Instagram how toprotect the ocean I'd love to hear your thoughts uh on this and uh stay tuned for the next episode we have a cool book coming at you if you have questions on the ocean and on the atmosphere there's a book that's coming out that's right down your alley that answers probably the questions that you have uh it's going to be a lot of fun so check that out uh subscribe you know follow whatever you need to do to find out more information and make that call to action to help these state parks thank you so much for listening to this episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast I'm your host Andrew Luen have a great day we'll talk to you next time and Happy conservation