If you get off the Mayport Ferry, mount your bicycle, and head north, you will experience one of the last, best stretches of unspoiled – dare I say pristine? – North Florida coastal environment.
You know what you won’t see?
Wall to wall, ocean view-blocking, high-rise condos.
Multi-million dollar beach houses awaiting the next hurricane.
Pastel colored strip shopping malls with quaint names, gated subdivisions, combo gas station/quick marts, and golf courses.
Not to mention the usual assortment of brand name hotels and fast food chain restaurants.
No, you can ride for 10 miles through Big and Little Talbot islands and still experience what Florida must have looked like when the first Europeans arrived…and then stayed on to invent sprawl.
You won’t see the typical Florida seaside tickey-tack again until you cross a big bridge and arrive at Amelia Island.
It’s one of my favorite Florida bicycle rides, and Little Talbot is one of my favorite camp grounds. And the only reason it remains close to pristine is because virtually all of the land is in public ownership.
This because public lands – parks, wildlife preserves, state forests and national seashores – are the last bulwark against runaway development in Florida.
The only comparable length of unspoiled North Florida Atlantic coastline that I’m aware of is a 12-mile stretch of beach, dunes and wetlands just north of Vilano Beach and south of Ponte Vedra.
It’s a combination state preserve, wildlife management area and national estuarine research reserve along the Guana River .
I’ve ridden that stretch of U.S. A1A many times as well. When I was executive director of Bike Florida we used the Environmental Center at Guano as a rest stop for our riders.
How else would they get to experience, up close and personal, what Florida was like BGD (Before Greedy Development)?
But of course, this is Florida, where the Art Of The Deal almost always comes at the expense of what remains of the state’s natural environment.
Now comes the news – belatedly – that an obscure committee within the Department of Environmental Accommodation – oops, sorry, I mean Protection – will meet on Wednesday to consider swapping 600 acres of land in the Guana WMA to a private, as yet unidentified, developer in return for 3,066 acres from various parcels in four other counties.
Five acres gained for every acre lost. Good deal, right?
Wait! Is all undeveloped land the same? If that were true, there would be as many high-rise condos in, say, rural Putnam County, as there are in coastal St. John’s.
That’s nonsense, of course. Somebody wants to develop a hunk of the Guana River precisely because ocean front property is so much more valuable (read profitable) than inland scrub lands.
“Florida’s conservation lands are not held in trust for the public simply until a developer wants them,” says Audubon Florida, who called the swap proposal “light on details.”
And that’s the problem. Just as the earlier scheme to put hotels, golf courses and other dreck in state parks, this proposal to carve out a hunk of Guana has been shrouded in secrecy.
Even Susie Wiles, Chief of Staff to a decidedly ungreen President Trump, has denounced the deal.
“Guana Preserve and its beauty, familiarity and serenity is woven into the fabric of our communities and is, indeed, a treasure in northeast Florida. To allow — even enable — this land grab to occur is outrageous and completely contrary to what our community desires,” Wiles, who has long standing ties to Northeast Florida, said in a statement.
“Elected and appointed leaders should vote against this development wolf in sheep’s clothing and preserve this extraordinary natural bounty.”
And so, once again, it falls on everyday Floridians who care about preservation, to rally and stand up against the shadowy bureaucrats and political operatives who want to Do The Deal.
The good news is that ‘Stop The Swap’ signs are breaking out all over Northeast Florida.
“Even if you don’t live here, Floridians should be watching what’s happening in St. Johns County,” Stacy Strumpf, one STS protestor, told the Tampa Bay Times. “If they’re coming for us, they’re coming for the rest of the state, too.”
Don’t let the Florida Department of Environmental Exploitation – oops, I mean Protection – get away with it, Floridians. Stop this underhanded swap!
FreeGNV 