A Park Worth Fighting For
(author’s note: I had the Mulan song “Girl worth fighting for” running through my head as I typed the title, and it took all of my mental fortitude not to write out lyrics.)
on to the blog!
Over the past 3 years, I’ve written 3.5 books about national parks. *
This is only the start. The Junior Rangers Investigative Club has had many adventures in the past, and I have many more plans for them going forward. (including the release of book #3: Treasure of Biscayne Bay, Which is Coming Soon!)
The goal should be obvious. I love parks. I want to share what I know about them. I want other people to love them too. Now, is an obvious time to love national parks. Most people do. Last year was a record year for visitation in national parks. 1 (334 million) And hundreds of millions of people visit our National Treasures every year.
People have loved our National Treasures for longer than the National Park Service has existed. In fact, it was love of these places which inspired the idea for a National Park Service. Yosemite, Yellowstone, Glacier, Redwood, the Grand Canyon and many more were admired for their stunning vistas and surrounding nature. Parks like the Everglades, the Great Smokey Mountains, and Channel Islands were established to protect nature and wildlife. And the idea was extended to preserve places of cultural and historic significance such as Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas, The Statue of Liberty, Gettysburg, and many more.
The idea was to protect, preserve, and provide access to these wonderful places. The mission has expanded to ensure that we not only have access to these wild and historic places which all of us own, but also to turn these places into persistent locations where we can learn, educate future generations, and provide for better quality of life, and not only that, but maintain a stability of nature that helps us, maintain biodiversity, and supports local industries.
To give an example of this comprehensive mission, let’s talk about one of the parks nearest and dearest to my heart. **,
Recently, I returned to Biscayne National Park. The Treasure of Biscayne Bay is releasing soon***, so I wanted to visit the location of the J.R.I.C.’s most swashbuckling adventure. Biscayne is almost entirely ocean. It’s better classified as a marine park with a thin border of mangrove coast and a thin string of small islands on the horizon.
On the surface, it doesn’t look like much. But the true depths of the park are easy to discover, and I’m not just making a diving pun. Certainly, the wonderous nature of Biscayne is most easily discovered underwater. From the mazes of mangrove roots near shore, across the planes of sea grass, and out into the deeper waters where shipwrecks are cast amongst scattered coral heads, the waters of Biscayne Bay are wonderous.
A walk off the edge of the world. On the edge of the ocean, you might be able to see the low lines of distant islands: Elliot Key, Boca Chita, and more.
And they did and do need protection. Northern Biscayne Bay is fringed by Miami. West of the park spreads lanes of irrigation channels and squares upon squares of land farmed for food and landscaping. At the south end is Turkey Point Power Plant. And the park is influenced by each of these. Even from the east, where the water gets deeper and the straits of Florida spread out, those nearby shipping lanes cast their refuse into the waves spreading trash ashore. But there was a time when Biscayne and the islands within the park were planned to become part of the expanded city, and more massive industrialization.
Plans were in the works for a community known as Islandia on the further keys. The area north of the visitor center, a fringe of mangroves now, was designated to become one of the largest oil refineries in the nation. And to accommodate the freighters which would ship the refined product across the Atlantic, a 40-foot deep channel would have been carved through the coral, shipwrecks, and seagrass. Enough people saw the hidden value to prevent these plans (more on that later,) but it was close.
To this day, there is still a struggle to preserve the park, as challenges continue. The coral, ever susceptible to temperature and disease (and slow to grow.) faces increased pressure from changing temperature extremes, and contamination in the waters. The seagrasses are surprisingly susceptible to damage by careless boaters or jet skis, and are also slow to regrow. And the waters themselves, as previously mentioned, are contaminated by farm runoff and silt from dredging to maintain ports in Miami. Even the wildlife (coral already mentioned) is not immune to the human influences around the park, as the introduction of species like the lionfish, cause habitat loss for lobster and grouper who find themselves outcompeted in their niches by the non-native poisonous fish with no natural predators.
I mention all of these not to accuse, nor to blame, but simply to point out that preservation and protection are not as simple, or as final, as setting aside a plot of land (or ocean) and leaving it alone.
Of course, while all of this was known and understood by the people who fought to establish Biscayne National Park (Monument originally,) to be worth preserving, they primarily came together to fight for the corals, islands, birds and fishing waters they loved. But not just for themselves they wanted all of us to share in the place that they loved. (probably not all at once, the park is not that big), and their movement ended up protecting and preserving so much more than just their beloved fishing holes and birding spots.
The Jones owned several of the keys in Biscayne Bay, and Lancelot and his siter-in-law’s choice to sell them to Make Biscayne a park helped to save it for all. Lancelot Jones and his family are well worth reading about!
We now have, and continue to expand, our understanding of exactly how much they managed to protect. Those mangroves are not just necessary for local fishing, but help to clean the waters. They also provide a vital habitat and nurseries for both sport and commercial species.3 As much as 75% of the fish which are commercially fished begin their life in mangrove habitats, and without protected places to start their lives, the fishing industry would collapse. Add to this that many of the rest, along with crustaceans, and shellfish are reliant upon seagrasses and corals, it’s not just a matter of protecting the wildlife we like to look at but also giving the ones we like to eat a safe place to spawn.
Beyond that use, the establishment of Biscayne as a Monument and later as a National Park, has allowed it to expand outside of a simple wilderness preserve, into an archive and monument to some of the most fascinating parts of Southern Florida’s History, from as far back as the earliest know inhabitants of Florida, the Tequesta, to the modern legacy still being written by the people who visit, and care for the park every day.
Federal Protection and research has allowed rangers and archeologists opportunities to study several Tequesta sites on some of the islands in the park. Progressing from there, much more research and attention has been paid to the legendary and historical figures who explored Biscayne Bay as Europeans moved west. Tales of explorers, pirates, sailors, and slaves. Important stories left behind by middens, ruins, shipwrecks and an ever-expanding archive of historical records and stories.
All of the work documenting and displaying the records of families like the Sweetings was done after my father’s time at Biscayne, knowledge about the park is still growing!
Into the modern era. On the bookshelves in the Dante Fascell visitor center there is a book written by a woman who lived on Elliot Key turning the 1920s. In the visitor center, there are stories of families such as the Jones and Sweetings who first settled the keys, and mentions of the Jones, again, the Tannehill’s, and the others who owned land on those small chains of island who chose their preservation over larger riches they could have gotten by selling them out. And so much more.
The day that I last visited, I spoke with a ranger whose history in Miami extends back three generations, and to the earliest decades of the city and who now works in Biscayne. Beyond the rangers are the visitors: the hundreds of faces I saw that day in one small segment of the park: a birthday party, a barbeque, families paddle boarding the same route Justin, Rudy and the other members of J.R.I.C. do in the upcoming book, crowds on a boat headed out to those islands, and families attending a free fishing seminar along the boardwalk along the outskirts of the ocean.
That mission of accessibility was obvious. And the mission of education continues. I watched several families take turns in that fishing seminar, learning how to cast lines, and then letting rangers bait their hooks to fish underneath the boardwalk. (I had to resist the urge to interrupt, when one young boy caught a bonefish, to tell him that he had caught a fish of historic significance to the park, but the ranger told that story before I could.)
I’ve been on the boat tour which passed by as I walked to the end of the trail, so I know that it goes deep into the history of the park, and the people who fought to make it what it is. Juanita Green, Belle Sheffel, Lloyd Miller, Dante Fascell, Herbert Hoover. I’ve meandered through the visitor center enough times to have most of the panels memorized, along with the awesome 3D displays, although the posters set up outside on the docks were new to me.
A month previously, I had attended a program put on by a former ranger and his friend, a night of smores, and talks about the history of our parks, and that Ranger’s experience and career. I was gratified when he mentioned my father, who was in the crowd and had once been his boss. But the whole experience was more than that. It was a community, coming together to share an experience in a place that is there for, and belongs to, all of us. It was an awesome evening!
The more recent afternoon was more normal, more of an everyday expedience at the national park. (although, for parents and interested fishers, I think I should mention that the fishing clinic is only offered on Saturdays) But it was no less exceptional.
It was exceptional, because there was always a chance that it never would have been. There is still a chance that it will not be in the future. People had to fight to preserve Biscayne. We still have to fight to keep it. Each of our parks is an indelible legacy left by people who fought for them in the past, but they still need people to work to protect and preserve them today.
I don’t like adding pictures of people to my blog, so I make posters instead, (most of the people fishing were behind me in this shot)
And to tell there stories. That’s more my forte. But right now, I’m more inclined to tell some stories not just about what may happen in those parks, but about the fights to make them, and maybe to inspire more people who love their parks, to fight for them to.
This isn’t the ongoing thing I was working on. It’s adjacent, but more necessary than that.
This is, by far, the longest in this upcoming series, (so long that I’m 5 days over-due) It’s also the most meandering. But perhaps, that’s ok, because it means that part 2 will be out really soon!
From here out, I’ll be a little clearer, I’ll be a bit more concise. I’ll be asking for anyone who reads these to take up short and simple calls to action.
But I’m starting here, so you know where I am coming from.
Biscayne, yes. But also Dry Tortugas, Mammoth Cave, Everglades, Big Cypress, Wupatki, Dinosaur, Bryce Canyon, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Crater Lake, Denali, Bears Ears, and oh so many more.
Each park was a park someone, lots of someones, thought was worth fighting for, and I want to talk about how.
Stay Tuned.
Share this one if you want, but please be ready to share future post more.
*The 3.5 includes the mostly complete manuscript for book #4 (that needs a lot of edits.) It does not include the other 2 books I’ve been working on, or the entire published Epic first season of a Sci-fi serialized adventure Coffee Chronicles but that’s a tale for another time.
** Although, if you probe too much into this statement, I could probably provide a very long list of parks ‘nearest and dearest’ to my heart. (look back a couple of weeks and you will see a blog which is partially about that.
*** The Treasure of Biscayne Bay was planned for a Fall, 2024 release, but it’s taken a bit more time to ensure that it is the best possible version of the book I could possibly hope to release.
References: (links only, I’m lazy)