By Linda Smithe

Everglades Coalition Conference, Everglades Restoration Investing in a Climate Resilient Future: January 2022.

I must highly recommend everyone put the Everglades Coalition Conference on their calendars for the beginning of January 2023. All the programs were excellent. 

I would like to give you a synopsis of one of the programs I had the pleasure of attending: “Giving Restoration and Resilience a Chance; Keeping Development and Highways Out of the CERP, Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan.” The panel consisted of Monroe County Commissioner Michelle Coldiron, Legislative assistant to Senator Marco Rubio, Connor Tomlinson, Reverend Houston Cypress, Miccosukee Tribe, and moderated by Environmental Attorney Richard Grosso. 

The panel emphasized that water unites us particularly in South Florida and that we need to accelerate the comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. They discussed many resolutions and projects for water storage and flow. A great deal of time was spent on the need to remove existing development rights. This is something our group is dealing with right here in Palm Beach County with the Agricultural Reserve. Currently, we are fighting against development rights being transferred from Indian Trails Grove in northern Palm Beach Couty into the Ag Reserve--all for the benefit of one developer with no tangible benefit for the county or region.

Local governments need to be proactive to reduce impact in their area which will affect development everywhere. I did not realize that the development rights could be reduced or removed with a valid reason that impacts the area. This was really an Aha moment for me. I have been so brain washed to believe that development rights are set in stone with inevitable expansion. I thought all we could do was try to slow it down, but we really can stop it and even reverse it.

Another great panel called “Learning Resistance from Those That Took Refuge in the Everglades, on their way to Freedom” consisted of Sherrie Jackson, S.E. Regional Manager National Parks Service, Uzi Baram, New College, Anthropology Professor, and Nadege Green, Director Community Research Storytelling Community Justice Project.

Having come originally to Florida from the north myself, I failed to recognize or learn that slaves did not just escape to the north. They escaped to Florida as well. Slaves made their way to Spanish, British, and French settlements. Some proceeded to the West Indies while others settled in what was considered savage wilderness. These people became known as Maroons, another term I was not familiar with. From Wikipedia: Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas who formed settlements away from slavery. They often mixed with indigenous peoples.

There was a large community of Maroons in the Bradenton/Sarasota area. The Angola Community was a British settlement used as a jumping off place for the Maroons to escape to Andros Island in the Bahamas. Many settled and stayed where there is now the Desoto National Memorial Park. This site is one of 640 sites in The National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom that serves to honor, preserve, and promote the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, which continues to inspire people worldwide. Through its mission, the Network to Freedom helps to advance the idea that all human beings embrace the right to self-determination and freedom from oppression.

This might inspire a road trip to Bradenton along the Manatee River, sounds beautiful and historic.