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Dear 1000 Friends,
This week the Florida Department of Environmental Protection unveiled a startling proposal that calls for adding golf courses and pickleball courts, and expanding lodging, at state parks. The plans include building three golf courses on more than 1,000 acres of scrub habitat at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County, as well as constructing 350-room lodges and pickleball courts at Anastasia State Park in St. Johns County and Topsail State Park in Walton County. Nine parks altogether would be impacted.
While a few state parks include historic lodges and cabins, none list golf courses or pickleball courts among their amenities. Instead, Florida’s parks feature passive outdoor recreational options, including camping, hiking, birdwatching and canoeing. They are not competitors for golf courses or other private recreational complexes, which are available throughout the state. They are sanctuaries for wild lands, wildlife and the millions of people who treasure them. This is increasingly important in fast developing Florida. So the DEP proposal, if implemented, would represent a radical, irreversible change for lands within the Florida Parks system.
Florida’s State Parks Division has announced plans to host eight, one-hour, in-person public meetings at 3 p.m. Tuesday Aug. 27 on updating management plans for the nine parks that the agency has in mind for its proposal. Most of the meetings are occurring simultaneously. None of the meetings have virtual options, and devotees of the targeted parks may live hours away or be unable to take off work on short notice to comment. Even so, we encourage anyone who is available and shares our alarm about this misguided proposal to attend the meetings. Here are the details:
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