by TRC_Admin | May 2, 2022 | Environmental, Historic, Legal, Master Planning, Nature
Video and Text: myCBS4.com
“During a meeting on March 22, Alachua county commissioners passed a motion to buy a parcel of land at the intersection of U.S. 441 and Tuscawilla Road, in order to preserve Native American history.
A developer wanted to turn the 5-acre property into a Dollar General store. The land holds historical significance because it is where the second Seminole war started. Micanopy resident Aaron Weber has been fighting to preserve this land since March of 2020.
‘Everyone told us we couldn’t do it, from former county commissioners to hired experts, and something just kept us persevering and pushing along. It was like the spirit of Osceola was with us, that spirit of never surrendering and never quitting,’ Weber said.
Weber said along the process more people joined like Micanopy resident Robert Rosa.
‘It was a difficult process. Most of our people are unseen, our voices are invisible or even ourselves are invisible to the common people, the government. They just don’t realize that we are still here,’ Rosa said.
Martha Tommie, member of the Seminole tribe, feels thankful.
‘He said, we won. And I just started being humble and just respecting our elders and our ancestors and our Seminole tribe of today,’ Tommie said.
Weber said with this gesture the board of county commissioners in Alachua county showed they care.
‘The county motto is Where nature and culture meet and they exemplified that and they care about nature,’ Weber said…”
— Massiel Leyva, myCBS4.com
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by TRC_Admin | May 2, 2022 | Landscaping, Nature, Wildflowers
Photo: Les Harrison
“Spring is the season of flowers in Wakulla County and the other locations in Florida. While there are blooms during the year’s remaining seasons in the relatively moderate climate of Panhandle Florida, it is spring which displays the majority of the blossoms.
It is fitting that Juan Ponce de Leon named this state, albeit indirectly. He landed somewhere on the eastern seaboard of Florida after a quick hop from Puerto Rico after being removed as governor.
While sailing around to the Gulf of Mexico the conquistador named the territory La Florida in recognition of the prolific array of flowers. In 1513, the year of his first visit, there were only native species present.
Since then, a number of exotic plants have been introduced to sometimes better effect, and sometimes worse. A major expense for commercial agriculture and home landscapes is controlling undesirable alien plant species which were introduced as potential ornamentals…
Spiderworts are often seen along fence rows, in pastures and untended fields, and in forested areas. They bloom from late spring to early summer and usually grow in clumps or bunches of plants.
The plant clumps are easily separated and transplanted. Spiderwort has been used in ornamental horticulture as a showy, low-cost alternative for many years.
In the wild and landscape settings, they expand their presence slowly but persistently. Their distribution reflects the ability to proliferate…
To learn more about native plant in Wakulla County, contact your UF/IFAS Wakulla Extension Office at 850-926-3931 or http://wakulla.ifas.ufl.edu/. To read more stories by Les Harrison visit outdoorauthor.com and follow us on Facebook.”
— Les Harrison, Wakulla Chronicle
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Nature, Planting
Photo: Samantha Neely, The News Herald
“A group of agencies are working together to make the Panhandle a better place,
one tree at a time.
The Northwest Florida Water Management District celebrated the planting of the
20 millionth longleaf pine on district lands on Thursday.
The event at Wolf Pond North Recreational Area was joined by the Longleaf
Alliance, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Arbor Day
Foundation, the Nature Conservancy and officials from state Rep. Allison Tant’s
delegation.
Their work of planting trees has gone back almost 30 years, with the district and
their partners planting 28 million trees in total since 1993. With its mission to
protect the district’s water, Northwest Florida Water Management District
Chairman George Roberts said he is proud of the milestone.
“Today was a good day for our 20th million longleaf pine,” Roberts said. “We do a
lot of reforestation projects throughout our district and also to help with our
water quality, as well as getting trees planted back to help with our water levels,
which was very high due to Hurricane Michael…”
— Samantha Neely, The News Herald
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Environmental, Nature
Photo: Nature Conservancy
“The Lykes Bros., Inc. and TNC [The Nature Conservancy] are one step closer to protecting Chaparral Slough, securing the 11-mile long wildlife corridor… As this Florida Forever project proceeds, it will conserve native habitats and important waters within a region of the state with renowned, high-quality natural resources.
The Chaparral Slough project area—eleven miles long and one mile wide—runs along Chaparral Slough, a tributary to Cypress Branch, and is part of the 122,213-acre Fisheating Creek Ecosystem Florida Forever Project. This conservation easement connects protected habitat from south of the Caloosahatchee River to Fisheating Creek, securing the wildlife corridor for Florida panther migration north toward protected lands flanking Fisheating Creek.
‘The Nature Conservancy has long recognized the need to establish and expand interconnected landscapes that provide nature room to move and grow while offering people necessary spaces for agriculture, recreation and resilience to a changing climate. Chaparral Slough is a prime example of a functional wildlife corridor and is a key step in our Florida panther protection efforts,’ said Temperince Morgan, Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy in Florida. Protection of Chaparral Slough Wildlife Corridor Learn about the protection of Chaparral Slough from Lykes Bros. Inc. President and CEO Johnnie P. James, Jr. and TNC Florida Director of Protection and Sustainable Communities Strategy Lindsay Stevens, as they discuss the importance of the land and the partnerships that enabled its protection.
TNC first began working with Lykes Bros., Inc. in 1990 to figure out a way to protect this important region. The wildlife corridor is home to the endangered Florida panther in addition to other iconic species including Florida black bear, eastern indigo snake, gopher tortoise, Florida sandhill crane, great egret, great blue heron, little blue heron, snowy egret, wood stork, white ibis, black-crowned night heron, crested caracara, American bald eagle, Florida burrowing owl, swallow-tailed kite, and snail kite.
Chaparral Slough features a vast array of natural habitats, including depression marsh, wet prairie, forested wetlands, floodplain swamp, slough, floodplain marsh, hydric hammock, prairie hammock, dry prairie, and mesic pine flatwoods.
These lands also provide critical water supplies, enhanced water quality, and a wide variety of essential ecosystem services to the residents of South Florida. Chaparral Slough captures, stores, and slowly releases water that travels to the Caloosahatchee River and the downstream San Carlos Bay estuarine system.
In 2014, Lykes Brothers, TNC and key partners first proposed the Chaparral Slough project be acquired with Florida Forever funds. Chaparral Slough was added as a new project and then immediately included within the Fisheating Creek Ecosystem Florida Forever project in June 2015. The completion of this conservation easement in 2022 signifies a new era of protection for Florida’s natural habitats.
‘The Lykes family’s outstanding stewardship of this land since the 1930’s has successfully combined a working cattle ranch, sustainable forestry and private hunting with tremendous wildlife habitat that supports some of the rarest species in Florida. The Nature Conservancy commends the Lykes family for its commitment to conservation, and fully recognizes the essential role the Florida Forever program, administered by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, has in bringing projects like Chaparral Slough to completion,’ said Lindsay Stevens, TNC Florida Director of Protection and Sustainable Communities Strategy.”
— Nature Conservancy Press Room
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 31, 2022 | Nature, Planting, Technology, Trees
Photo: Alana Holmberg, The New York Times
“A program in Melbourne, Australia, that tracks every public tree — and even gives each an email address — is seen as a way to manage climate change.
High in the branches of a 122-year-old Dutch Elm, two workers in a bucket crane framed by the city’s skyline used a chain saw to slice large limbs from the top of the tree.
Office workers strolled past, seemingly enjoying the afternoon sunshine of Flagstaff Gardens, the city’s oldest public park, while the workers carried out their ‘reduction pruning’ aimed at controlling the tree’s bulk to help improve its vitality and extend its lifespan.
It is one of the most time-tested forms of tree maintenance, but at ground level the workers’ supervisor, Jake Shepherd, added a high-tech wrinkle.
Mr. Shepherd, a 27-year-old Englishman, touched a yellow circle on a portable electronic device. The circle was within a map of the park that is part of the city’s elaborate tree database and it instantly turned green to register that this specific elm was back in top shape…
New York, Denver, Shanghai, Ottawa and Los Angeles have all unveiled Million Tree Initiatives aimed at greatly increasing their urban forests because of the ability of trees to reduce city temperatures, absorb carbon dioxide and soak up excess rainfall.
Central Melbourne, on the other hand, lacks those cities’ financial firepower and is planning to plant a little more than 3,000 trees a year over the next decade. Yet it has gained the interest of other cities by using its extensive data to shore up the community engagement and political commitment required to sustain the decades-long work of building urban forests.
A small municipality covering just 14.5 square miles in the center of the greater Melbourne metropolitan area — which sprawls for 3,860 square miles and houses 5.2 million people in 31 municipalities — the city of Melbourne introduced its online map in 2013.
Called the Urban Forest Visual, the map displayed each of the 80,000 trees in its parks and streets, and showed each tree’s age, species and health. It also gave each tree its own email address so that people could help to monitor them and alert council workers to any specific problems.
That is when the magic happened.
City officials were surprised to see the trees receiving thousands of love letters. They ranged from jaunty greetings — ‘good luck with the photosynthesis’ — to love poems and emotional tributes about how much joy the trees brought to people’s lives.
Members of the public were subsequently recruited to help with forestry programs such as measuring trees and monitoring wildlife, and politicians were left in no doubt about how much Melburnians valued their trees…
Gregory Moore, an expert on ecosystems and forests at the University of Melbourne, said another major problem was that planning laws controlled by the state of Victoria did little to protect greenery on private land, allowing development that contributed to the annual loss of 1.5 percent of canopy cover across the greater metropolitan area.
‘A good tree cover can save you an enormous amount in health spending alone by reducing deaths in heat waves and getting people outside and taking more exercise,’ he said. ‘Politicians and bureaucrats seem to think that all of these benefits from planting trees are simply too good to be true, but I think they will eventually get the point when economists keep telling them how much money they will save.'”
— Peter Wilson, New York Times
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by TRC_Admin | Mar 12, 2022 | Codes, Environmental, Nature, Zoning
Map: from Fernandina Observer
‘Tiger Island has no zoning. Consequently, the County Planning Department is proposing that it be zoned Open Rural (OR). By doing so, North Florida Land Trust will be able to get it appraised and finally conserve it.
Tiger Island – a 981-acre parcel located in the middle of the Amelia and St. Mary’s Rivers, has been on the watch list for the acquisition and protection of countless conservation organizations for years. Well over seven years at the very least, said a spokesperson for one conservation organization.
Why does this parcel rank so high on a most wanted list? Because Tiger Island is a barrier island . . . just like Cumberland Island and Amelia Island –and Tiger Island is one of the southernmost sea islands in the area. As such, these ‘sea islands’ help to protect surrounding areas from erosion, flooding and storm surge. Not to mention the fact that they provide and protect the habitats of so very many species – including manatees, gopher tortoises, sturgeon and countless birds.
In December of 2021, the North Florida Land Trust (NFLT) heralded news that it and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had been awarded a $1 million grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program to preserve the salt marsh and maritime forest that is Tiger Island.
The ultimate goal is to have Tiger Island become part of Fort Clinch State Park with ongoing maintenance and management provided by Fort Clinch’s parent organization—the State of Florida’s Division of Recreation and Parks.
Getting any parcel of land protected is no easy job. To quote Jim McCarthy, President of the North Florida Land Trust (NFLT), ‘conservation moves at glacier speed,’ . . . and when he said it, he noted that he was taking a bit of poetic license from a developer he knew some time ago who was talking about his own line of business.
To get any particular piece of land protected, it takes a lot of coordination, cooperation, collaboration . . . and of course, community support. Here is an outline of some of the essential elements and how they relate to Tiger Island.
#1 A WILLING SELLER Many years ago, the owners of Tiger Island may have envisioned developing the acreage for housing or hotels . . . but not anymore. During a recent phone conversation with the NFLT, the owners have committed themselves to preservation. In fact, there is already a signed contract that basically ‘seals the deal’ which will preserve in perpetuity, this island paradise.
#2 A CRITICAL MASS OF INDIVIDUALS/ORGANIZATIONS DEDICATED TO THE CAUSE In addition to the main funding sources already mentioned, the Forever Florida program has promised a matching $1 million grant.
#3 PRIVATE SUPPORT In addition to support at the federal, state and local levels, add to that list is an anonymous donor who has pledged to provide any additional funds necessary to complete the purchase and get the conservation program well underway – connecting a network of protected lands and waterways along the Florida-Georgia line.
There’s just one (or two) last hurdle(s).
It seems Tiger Island has never been zoned – despite Florida law which requires that every acre of land in the State be zoned.
Some say the omission of Tiger Island was a mere ‘Scrivener’s Error’ when Florida went ‘digital.’
Regardless, Tiger Island now needs to be zoned and that step in the process cannot be ‘skipped’ because an actual zone classification is needed so that the land can be appraised…'”
— Cindy Jackson, Fernandina Observer
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