Martin County's Indian RiverSide Park, with its spectacular riverfront views and kid-friendly interactive fountain is an example. So is Halpatiokee Park, with its roller rink, ball fields and trails to the St. Lucie River's South Fork.
Bob Graham Beach, Santa Lucia, Stuart Beach, Beachwalk Paisley and Jensen Beach on Hutchinson Island are saved-forever places with Atlantic Ocean access for everyone. The 6-mile Lake Okeechobee Ridge Sanchez Trail and a portion of Pal-Mar near the Palm Beach-Martin County line are more examples.
Palm Beach County has received more than $65 million in state money that it combined with voter-approved bond money to buy and preserve land in the Agricultural Reserve. State money also helped save Jupiter Ridge, a 400-acre parcel near the ocean that includes scrub, wetlands and mangroves, and provides a home for scrub jays and other wildlife. St. Lucie County saved miles of oceanfront with the state's help, along with land near Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution.
Statewide, the Florida Forever program and land projects that preceded it helped buy more than 2 million acres. Wakulla Springs, lands in Florida's Panhandle and Adams Ranch land near the Space Coast are on this year's wish list.
The program expires in 2010, and with almost all of its $300 million per year already allocated, a coalition of environmental groups wants the Legislature to renew Florida Forever and set aside more money for another 10 years. It's a wonderful idea. The market is down, and land is more reasonably priced. It's an ideal time to buy preservation land.
That's what representatives of The Nature Conservancy, 1000 Friends of Florida, Audubon of Florida and other members of the Florida Forever Coalition believe, and they are correct. In a brainstorming session at Martin County's Indian Riverside Park last week, a room full of hopeful people came up with ideas to tackle the major obstacle to realizing this dream: No money.
St. Lucie County Commissioner Doug Coward suggested that counties could use tourist taxes to put more money in land-buying funds. His colleague, Charles Grande, suggests that buyers must be "more imaginative and thoughtful," maybe by purchasing rights to keep things from happening to agricultural and rural lands. Charles Pattison, president of 1000 Friends Florida, suggests a campaign to get school kids to collect pennies.
Some might wonder why Florida needs more preservation land. About 9.7 million acres, or 28 percent of Florida's total acreage, now is protected. Supporters have a goal of 33 percent. Having that much land in the public domain could be vital if a recent 1000 Friends study is right that in 50 years a population of 36 million will cause rural land to disappear on our little peninsula.
Through Florida Forever and its predecessors, the state has spent $2 billion in 19 years to buy 2 million acres for conservation, said Andy McLeod, the Nature Conservancy's director of external affairs. But Florida Forever expires unless legislators agree to extend it. The $300 million a year the program gets for land purchases comes from documentary stamp taxes on real-estate transactions. Besides extending the program for another decade, the coalition wants to increase the money to $600 million a year for the first five years and $900 million annually for the next five.
The coalition plans other "listening sessions" on Florida Forever around the state, hoping that the meetings will spark a grass-roots effort to back extending the program. The next session is March 18 - Florida Forever Day in Tallahassee. For more information, visit www.supportfloridaforever.org or www.nature.org/floridaforever. And for inspiration, go to a local park or beach the program has helped to save. Then contact your favorite legislator.
A clarification on last week's column about problems at Martin's Witham Field: The airport's highest traffic count, of 121,000 flights per year, occurred during the years before the Federal Aviation Administration began buying homes in neighborhoods affected by jet noise. Also, the FAA approved the YMCA's soccer fields after a controversial runway was extended, which put the fields in the "crash" zone.
