"Is it 1984 or have I lost my mind? The great Jonathan Dickinson controversy."
August 2024
By now, almost all of you will have heard of the bewildering proposal (tabled for now) to destroy globally imperiled Florida scrub at Jonathan Dickinson State Park, chock full of endemic, rare, and threatened plants and animals, including many state-listed species. The reason? To build golf courses and provide other “improvements.”
Aside from the normal whiff of improper political influence and public agencies forgetting their central mandate to protect irreplaceable natural resources, there is something else insidious here that deserves critical attention. Following the extreme negative public response following disclosure of the plan, Governor DeSantis said "As if they were going to try to take away unspoiled land. No, there was almost 1,000 buildings on that base back in the day. There's still some remnants of it.”
What is fundamentally wrong with this statement?
Florida has spent billions of dollars restoring ecosystems and will continue to spend billions in the future. We are in the middle of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The European Union has just passed the transformational EU Nature Restoration Law. What we know is that most native ecosystems have been degraded in Florida and around the world. Ecological restoration is imperative to stop the extinction crisis, respond to climate change, and deliver essential ecosystem services like clean water and breathable air. But imagine a world in which any ecosystem restored or being restored can be destroyed with the stroke of a pen because it is not ‘unspoiled’. Are the Everglades next?
One of the eight globally agreed principles of ecological restoration is Ecological Restoration Supports Ecosystem Recovery Processes (Gann et al.2019). Nature, assisted by appropriate restoration measures, can be highly effective at recovery – in fact, Nature is way more efficient than we are. Yes, there were many buildings in the past where scrub is now at Jonathan Dickinson. This is not something negative, but rather a testament to the power of Nature and the good works of the Florida Park Service. This recovery is an incredible success story to be celebrated, not something to be diminished to sell off another piece of Florida to the politically connected. By George Gann Reprinted from August 2024 IRC Newsletter