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UrduWhat: Climate experts from Florida Atlantic University, Archbold Biological Station, and Live Wildly Foundation will speak and answer questions from the media on the Florida Wildlife Corridor (FLWC) and Climate Change managing Florida’s Natural and Human Landscapes for Prosperity and Resilience
Who: Joshua Daskin, Ph.D., Colin Polsky, Ph.D., John “Jay” Baldwin, Ph.D., Akintunde “Akin” Owosina, P.E, and Meredith Budd
When: April 11, 2024, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET
Where: Newswise Live Zoom Room (address will be included in follow-up email)
Details:
Climate Change Impact Report is now accessible!
Press pass registration to access details of the study is open: Click here
The embargo lifts on April 16, 2024, at 9 A.M. ET.
Panelists:
- Joshua Daskin, Ph.D. – Director of Conservation at Archbold Biological Station
- Colin Polsky, Ph.D. – Founding Director, School of Environmental, Coastal, and Ocean Sustainability Director at Center for Environmental Studies, and Professor of Geosciences at Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- John “Jay” Baldwin, Ph.D. – Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at Florida Atlantic University, Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
- Akintunde “Akin” Owosina, P.E – Chief Information Officer, (Director, Information Technology Division) at South Florida Water Management District
- Meredith Budd – Director, Strategic Initiatives at Live Wildly Foundation
Steps to access the Live Event:
- Register for the Live Event
- Get a Google calendar invite
- Join the Zoom session using the link in the calendar invite at the scheduled time
__________
TRANSCRIPT
Thom from Newswise (T): Hello, and welcome to this Newswise Live event today with a panel of experts to discuss their forthcoming report on the impact of climate change on the state of Florida, and the role of conservation to mitigate that impact. I’d like to introduce our first panelists and ask the question of what the key findings are of this report. Colin, if you’d introduce yourself and tell us about the report.
Colin Polsky (CP): Greetings everyone, my name is Colin Polsky. I’m a professor at Florida Atlantic University, where I also direct the environment school, the School of Environment, Coastal and Ocean Sustainability or ECOS. It was a pleasure to lead this effort, there was a lot of help. One of my main colleagues here in that regard is on the panel today. And we also received a lot of good guidance and support from Archbold Biological Station, and they’re also represented here today. We actually have two co-authors on this panel, and so they’ll speak later. Basically in a nutshell, this report asked the question, how might the Florida Wildlife Corridor affect Florida’s climate resilience, and the Florida Wildlife Corridor for those of you who aren’t familiar is a world class attempt by the state of Florida to conserve land, for the purpose primarily, of helping biodiversity and certain wildlife cope better with the loss of land to urbanization. But so this is a world class effort, there’s some 18 million acres envisaged to be put into conservation, 10 million approximately already in conservation. And so there’s about 8 million remaining. One of the most important features of the Florida Wildlife Corridor to keep in mind is that it is intended to conserve land and to help nature but not to do so at the expense of economic growth that’s fueled by population growth. Instead, it’s an attempt to welcome the 1,000 people a day approximately who moved to Florida, but to do so in a way that allows for the wildlife to continue to thrive.
T: I’d like to ask Josh now to introduce himself and tell what led to the idea of this report, and why it’s important overall to Florida conservation. Thanks, Josh.
Josh Daskin (JD): Thanks, Thom. Good morning, everybody. My name is Josh Daskin. I’m the director of conservation at Archbold Biological Station. We commissioned the report with funding from the Live Wildly Foundation. And the idea for this report really came from the fact that the Florida Wildlife Corridor effort is steering billions of dollars towards land conservation in the state, federal, local and state dollars. We at Archbold and our partners throughout the state, we aim to advocate for this public money with credible backing of science to describe the costs and benefits of corridor conservation of land conservation within the Florida Wildlife Corridor for both people and for nature. So climate resilience is one area in which land conservation can help both nature and people. But no one had assembled the state of the science for all the ways that climate resilience can be impacted by land conservation. So that was really the goal that we set forth for the authors of this report.
T: Akin, please introduce yourself and tell why expert reports like this are so critical for policy.
Akin Owosina (AO): Thank you. My name is Akin Owosina, Chief Information Officer at the South Florida Water Management District. Until very recently, though, I was chief of hydrology and hydraulics, the Water Management District responsible for modeling and analysis for things that went on restoration projects like the Everglades restoration. And all of those things are affected by climate change, and sea level rise. And the concept of having the plant visitation conservation. They’re part of the strategy is something that agencies like to look at. Now, one of the critical pieces that a report like this provide is the opportunity to get more tied to the plenary skill sets and expertise in different areas together to summarize, the known knowledge and identify some of the gaps and areas to look at an agency like mine would be able to look at that information and use that to guide some of the decisions on the land conservation goals. So we might want to manage some of the resources we currently hold in conservation done in a slightly different way, and a way to incorporate into our planning or the needs of the environment. So a report like this, and it’s kind of Patrick Moss, that I’ve been put together, extremely valuable to attend.
T: Thank you Akin. Meredith, if you would introduce yourself, please and tell us about the specific policy policies to support the Florida Wildlife Corridor.
Meredith Budd (MB): Sure, my name is Meredith Budd, and I am the Director of Strategic Initiatives with the Live Wildly Foundation, really proud to be able to support this, this report. And so when we’re thinking about climate resilience and the policy recommendations that we can see from what we’ve learned about from this report, we know that we need to encourage and have robust, meaningful and consistent funding for conservation across the state. We need to have policies and legislation that integrate concepts of climate resilience into land use planning, and conservation initiatives that includes local land use planning of cluster development, making sure that we’re developing in areas that are of lesser environmental value and protecting those areas that are higher nominal value, how can we incentivize those sorts of land use planning efforts? And of course, how do we work with local official local officials and state officials to ensure that we’re limiting development on our coastal wetland and floodplain areas, that way we can make sure that we’re protecting the land needed for climate resilience across the state? Those are the high-level policy recommendations that I think we see coming out of this report.
T: Thank you. Jay, would you introduce yourself, please and tell us how does the participation in this report different from other types of academic research?
John “Jay” Baldwin (JJB): Sure, ‘morning everyone, my name is Jay Baldwin. I’m an Associate Dean for the College of Science at Florida Atlantic University and a professor in biology. I think what makes this report and this project different than typical academic research, academic research tends to focus on a specific question, try to address a specific topic with a small team of researchers participants, this project has really been a very collaborative effort between researchers, policymakers, advocacy groups, to try and address, you know, this awesome project of the wildlife corridor with how does our changing climate going to affect or how can this corridor benefit from it. And so I just think that the number of people and perspectives on the wildlife corridor this perspectives on climate and how our climate is going to change, bringing that group together with this and to write a document that’s going to help everybody kind of better understand.
T: For the panel, I’m, interested to know what types of climate related events specifically that Florida is faced with that this type of conservation can help to protect against.
CP: Sure. So climate is changing in Florida as elsewhere. And the three principal outcomes that we are looking at in this report are more heat, which leads to greater wildfire risk, more rain volume per event, which leads to greater flooding, risk, and coastal flooding associated with higher sea levels, which manifests not only in greater storm surge from your average hurricane, but also in flooding in the streets in coastal areas, even on sunny days, which has been happening with greater frequency. So these processes are unfolding. And the only way to stop them is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a world scale. But what we can do in Florida as elsewhere, is trying to prepare for the effects. As well as try to reduce emissions. The Florida Wildlife Corridor just happens to contribute to reducing the negative effects that I just listed, not entirely and not instantaneously. But the way the Florida Wildlife Corridor as other wildlife corridors is designed. It would help if the acreage that’s mapped out gets implemented into conservation, reduce coastal flooding risk by reducing the development that we see in floodplains near the coast, which means we lose less mangrove for example and so that’s just one example. But basically more heat, which would manifest mostly is warmer nighttime temperatures, and greater wildfire risk and more rain per event, which leads to higher flood risks.
T: Thanks, Colin. Josh, how does the findings in this report get turned into the legislation the policy to support further conservation of the Florida Wildlife Corridor and expanding it?
JD: Sure thing. That is the whole point of this project is not just to produce the report, but to see outcomes on the ground. So, as we’re seeing the regressing impacts of climate change across the country, and especially here in Florida, where we’re at ground zero of climate change, this report provides a roadmap for how we can help protect Florida’s natural areas and human communities from the worst climate threats. The report will be made available on Archbold website, and will be distributed to hundreds of conservationists, public officials, and researchers starting on April 16. We expect that the conservation community decision makers, excuse me, the conservation community, decision makers, and the public will all draw on the findings of the report’s authors to advocate for federal state and local funding for land conservation, and to encourage smart land use planning that is compatible with corridor conservation, supporting human and wildlife communities in concert to, in spite of the growth and the climate change that we know is coming to Florida.
T: Thanks, Josh. Akin, water is a big part of this. And the challenges posed to Florida because of water resources are a very important part of this. So what does the report suggest be done specifically in that area?
AO: Yeah, thanks for that question. And before I actually go to what should be done, I would try to paint the picture of what the challenges are the climate challenges a little bit, and then bring in the context of the wildlife corridor work could be done. Colin mentioned earlier that we’re looking at things like sea level rise and increased dominance. And I like to focus on those two, and the water resources of Florida. A lot of our drinking water is from groundwater sources. And in areas in the southeast part of Florida, for example, a lot of other coastal aquifers, which are potentially subject to things like satellite intrusion. And we also have all this infrastructure that provides flood protection that made it possible for us to live here. And many of those are gravity, spillways that require had difference between the inland water and the ocean water to just add water, the tide would fill level rise, we’re beginning to see loss of efficiency in some of those, we’re beginning to see due to development increased runoff, and they can there is need to discharge more water at a time when they have less capacity to discharge it, because of the reduced gradient. And what we’re beginning to plan for is how to make sure that the flood control system that we have, over the next several decades, will continue to provide the kind of flood relief that people have today. And one of the strategies that become clear, or from a technical ability for it to work. And the strong stakeholder demand is the use of conservation, the concept of green infrastructure, making storage, reducing impervious areas, developing in a meaningful way, very smart way to have infiltration, and recharge to the aquifers instead of running the water after tide, constantly on lesser impact in other places. So a number of things are going on, were identifying these challenges to flooding and water supply. And what we found out and one of the things that I was very happy to read and this report from some of my co-authors were strategies that could be put in place, whether it’s going to be development, that allows you to maximize infiltration, and some other cool benefits and ways that we could start looking at finding plug really solutions that are not just some of the gray infrastructure that we have. But there are a number of gaps also identified in the report, which will be area for future work. And it will be areas where agencies like mine will probably spend some time in the next few years. But mostly it’s in the aspects of providing flood relief, leveraging land conservation, avoidance of development in floodplains, increasing the areas where you can still hold water and where you can maximize infiltration to the system.
T: Meredith, Akin talked about building better engineered spaces for flood protection. So this report makes prescriptions or recommendations for things like that. How can that be balanced with the desire for growth and development that land conservation can be agreed on, while growth and development still is possible?
MB: Yeah, so balance is the key here balance has to be the answer, because we have more than 1,200 people moving to Florida every single day. And so with that increasing population, you have expanded urban development, and you have the threat of erasing Florida’s natural and working lands, which we know how to provide benefits to climate resilience as articulated in the report. And we’ve heard from the authors of this report today, and we see it in the report that there are significant climate related challenges. We have rising temperatures, we have the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, we have flooding, risk of flooding, I should say. And so the challenge really is how do we balance that population growth with protecting our natural and working lands that are really providing that buffer needed to protect people from the effects of climate change. And I think that balances is also key, because of the economic benefits that we see from those conservation lands of Florida. Since the passage of the Act has budgeted over $2 billion in conservation, across the state, we’re looking at protecting over 190,000 acres of land, that’s a critical investment for the economic future. That is tied to climate resilience. So how do we reduce the risks of climate change, we need to protect the land. The people that are moving here want those benefits of the corridor. So balance is the key. And this report aims to highlight how protecting the Florida Wildlife Corridor. And limiting development within that corridor can help buffer for people, both the effects of climate change and the population pressures that we see on our natural and working lands.
T: Jay, this started primarily as a wildlife conservation effort. But your report points out all of the benefits, regardless of that focus, on climate. Let’s hear, though about the wildlife. What species and what types of biodiversity in this region are important, and have now demonstrated more resilience to climate change because of this preservation?
JJB: Yeah, it’s kind of to build off of the question of, from Meredith and balance, the wildlife corridor is huge, it’s the entire state. And so different species in different parts of the corridor are going to respond differently to our changing climate. And so some areas are going to be more impacted than others. And so the benefit of the corridor for wildlife, and everything from Panthers and bears, which is the initial start for a lot of the emphasis for the corridor, it’s the entire ecosystems and food webs, that those species that are more, you know, charismatic, if you want, depends on all these other parts of the ecosystem. And so by having large chunks of lands in that conductivity, it helps balance out against these climate changes. The other thing is no other species that are going to really benefit from this are people, right? And so the ways that people are going to be able to utilize their environment to go for it, take a walk in the park to see, you know, an otter, you know, as part of that, it would be great. And it’s going to be a much better environment for everyone. And so the report and the science behind it really demonstrate that conserving the wildlife corridor. It’s not just good for Florida’s wildlife, but also benefits people of Florida.
T: Yeah, that’s certainly important. So I want to ask Colin, to weigh in on that further about what the average person should take away from this report. And why it matters for both of these reasons, both of the species that are signs of a healthy ecosystem and the knowledge about how to build a smarter future there.
CP: Well, I you know, mainly I would echo what my colleagues have said. One question that came up the other day is what could the average person do if they wanted to support the corridor or, and I’ll suggest something that it might be subtle, but you know, when your local commission, your municipality, for example, or even your county is considering zoning changes to facilitate development happens all the time, you know, we’re getting more people, people do mean, added economic growth opportunities. So we have to accommodate the exponentially growing population somehow. But one thing you can do is even though the corridor or wildlife might not come up in the conversations at the commission meeting about rezoning is you could bring it up, and then you could connect the dots. And so again, also returning to this question of balance between environment and economy, the conversations at the very local level about development on the ground, you know, which parcels will be permitted to develop into multifamily housing or single family housing, for example, those conversations, again, are not likely to talk about wildlife and climate. But if you attend those meetings, if you voice if you make your voice heard, you could try and connect the dots in our report is a starting point for doing that.
T: Josh, this report is quite unique. Are there other places where this sort of study and this sort of these sort of practices have been put into put into play before?
JD: Yeah, thanks, Thom. So there are global and national goals to protect more and better-connected habitats in the way that the Florida wildlife corridor is doing. There aren’t many other places, if any, that are as explicitly and deliberately going ahead with that, with that effort. So the Florida Wildlife Corridor is fairly unique, as is this report, deliberately and scientifically linking ambitious wildlife habitat conductivity conservation corridor protection to benefits for people and ecosystems has great potential worldwide. Not everyone’s first priority is wildlife. And so however, protecting people’s health and property and infrastructure from fire, flooding, heat and storms is usually top of mind for people. So this report for Florida links wildlife conservation is something that many people value and come to Florida for, with things that are top of mind for the public and decision makers, few connectivity projects, few other Corridor projects match the ambition of the Florida Wildlife Corridor. But we’re building a picture of the comprehensive costs and benefits for this vision of Florida’s future and other regions can do the same.
T: Akin, the tools and the knowledge about building in these floodplains and making sure that it doesn’t happen in the wrong places. Do we have all the tools needed to do that?
AO: I mean, the quick answer would be no, about when the ball in in the correct direction. And I’ll provide a little bit more context. So one of the great things about the wildlife corridor that I that I first noticed for the fact that this was something that everybody seemed to come up I agree with. And part of how we got there was they have good communication, they have a lot of data and science behind it. And there were really good informational strategies that make people see the value of what was going on, I think we need to be in the same type of place when it comes to showing the merit or lack of merit of developing a floodplain, we begin to have lots of modeling tools, which is good. We have reports like this, which are narrative summaries, which are good. And with some of the more recent efforts by the state of Florida with the residents of Florida plan, and the creation of flood hub. I think that is a conscious effort to develop consistent tools that can be used across multiple communities, to evaluate things in the same way to be able to really quantify some of the direct monetary and non-monetary values and cost of developing a floodplain or preserving land or developing in a smart way. And I think we’ll need to have all of those things come together to create that same type of environment where without really pushing much we can provide information and data. And the real description of the of the pros and cons of development in the wetland and people can find the correct balance. I think that’s something that it was still striving for. I think we’re on a good trajectory towards that. We’re not there yet. But we’ve made a lot of progress. I know. For example on my team. I’ve been working with other local government. We’re leveraging the same tools in our industry. In the same language, and I’m very optimistic that way, that we’re in the right direction.
T: Thanks, Akin. We have a question here in the chat. Compact land development is not the norm. And it’s up to local county governments to mandate it through zoning. Is this something that there’s any protocol for the state to step in, if necessary, to set certain guidelines? And are there existing developments that can be looked to as an example? Which of the panel might like to answer that? Feel free to speak up?
JD: I can give it a go. And then others can follow up if that’s all right. So, yeah, absolutely compact or denser development is one piece of the puzzle here. All those people coming to Florida need a place to live. If we can pack them in outside the corridor, that’s great. That said, the corridor right now is a fully voluntary conservation initiative. It is not a regulatory effort. It does not mandate that landowners do certain things. But zoning is a piece of the puzzle here. And it is incumbent on local and county governments to use the tools at hand like comprehensive land use plans that every county has in Florida, to give the teeth necessary to existing zoning. So it’s not helpful to dismantle comprehensive land use plans piece by piece, it is helpful to use comprehensive land use plans in a coordinated fashion. So instead of what’s going to happen on this parcel, we want to think about what’s going to happen in this neighborhood. Is there an existing housing development that Florida can look to as an example, others may want to weigh in on that, but I might point to the Lake Wales envisioned project, which is not necessarily directly tied to the Florida wildlife corridor. But it is an effort at that coordinated planning, saying what our neighborhoods going to look like in the future. How do we keep wildlife? How do we keep natural areas, both for nature, and for people? Happy if others want to give other examples.
T: Any other thoughts on that topic? Akin, go ahead,
AO: I might be able to add something to that. And just with regards to an example. So I’m sure somebody else on the panel may be able to add more, but from the point of view of responding to emergencies, including hurricanes, there were some interesting anecdotes that came out of the west coast following I believe it was, and development that was built with resiliency, some environmental consciousness as part of the underpinning, I think. I might be missing something. But I think the takeaway from that was that you could do something that environmentally savvy, that conservative of natural land, and they could then yield for substantial benefits when you start looking at economic losses, following an event. And so that’s the one of the areas why it might not be something that’s driven mostly by regulation or state action. It may be something that’s in the self-interest of the portfolio and the development. And I mentioned earlier that there was a paradigm shift. I came is this.
T: Akin, Is this that story that you’re referring to? Hurricane Ian? Yes. Yeah. Babcock Ranch there. Here’s a story from BBC about it last September. Yeah, that’s the one.
AO: Yeah. So I think a lot of these things may happen because of our self- interest once we get the information. I think it’s, it’s quite possible. But the BeltLine, that’s one of the things are very exciting right now about the.
MB: I think if I also add, I think that there’s a lot to be said about incentivizing such development as opposed to regulating it or having the state come in and place regulations that would force local municipal or county governments to do something incentives are really useful tool. And there are local governments that have zoning overlays that don’t necessarily require landowners or developers to opt in to such zoning, but it gives them an incentive to opt into zoning that would allow for the protection of larger areas of environmentally sensitive land and then give density bonuses in areas of lesser environmental value. It’s there’s athe rural land stewardship area is in Florida statute that is a zoning overlay that local governments can implement. Again, it’s not mandatory, it’s an optional overlay that people can opt into. And it’s incentive based. It’s how can we get private property owners and developers to work alongside the efforts to protect what makes Florida special and incentives are a really, really useful tool to do that, as opposed to regulating those requirements to do so that that may cause tension or conflict down the line.
T: Meredith, what do you think happens if some of these opportunity areas to explain expand the corridor or to continue to bolster it? What do you think happens if that fails to happen, and they’re not conserved?
MB: Um, so the report clearly talks about that we the resilience benefits that the corridor serves, currently, we have an 18 million acre Florida wildlife corridor of those 18 million acres, 10 million are already protected, those are already in some form of conservation or preservation, the remaining 8 million are still a part of the corridor, they’re just not protected. So the report is articulating the benefits of the entire 18 million acres, including those 8 million acres that are what you’re calling and what we call the opportunity area, that’s opportunity to protect still. But currently, they’re not developed, they’re not intensified use uses, excuse me. And so if we do not protect those acres, we are going to see less of a climate resilience benefit from the corridor, flooding and wildfire risk is increasing with climate change. And so the corridor is providing billions of dollars’ worth of flood protection. It’s keeping our floodplains undeveloped, and that’s helping with flood protection, especially in the wake of increased storm intensity, and frequency. And again, I think Colin mentioned a resistance tofire, so helping with reducing fire risk. And so as you chip away at those remaining 8 million acres that we have the opportunity to protect you our we are I should say, reducing the benefits that we will see for climate resilience over time.
T: Jay, there’s a lot here that is based in research, but translated into policy. So how does this report achieve that because of the collaboration there between those two different points of view?
JJB: Well, the report, that’s why the report was written was to provide that information in a format of kind of how does climate and the change that we’re seeing there? How does that and the wildlife corridor and what’s happening there? How do those two, you know marry, you know, what is the benefits for both through there? And so to go back to something Meredith has just said about instead of regulation, incentivizing, a big part of that is increasing people’s knowledge base. So whether that’s, you know, a local developer, state regulator, policy maker, the general public, people that are wanting to do these sorts of things, but may not have thought about it in the way. So how does climate resilience, you know, in the wildlife corridor, you know, what, how did those two kind of come together. And so that was kind of benefit of the report was to bring that into a format a document to help educate a wide range of people on the benefits of the wildlife corridor as we move forward. And so those partnerships are critical, and that communication is critical. And so this is one tool that we can use to help foster those partnerships between local land developers, wildlife conservationists, and various policymakers.
T: Colin, what would you like to see policymakers specifically take away from the report?
CP: Well, this report is grounded in the latest science. It’s also what we would call a qualitative report, in the sense that we don’t have specific numbers to dictate exactly what happens in any given parcel. But that’s fine, because that’s often the space for policymakers. And the thing I think that’s most important to take away here is there’s a few things. Number one is a dollar invested in the corridor is, also has some beneficial effect for climate resilience as an investment there. So you’re kind of I won’t we can’t say yet one day maybe we could do the study. But we can’t say now that $1 vested in the corridor has a dollar equal investment value for climate resilience, but there is an unintended extra benefit for climate resilience. That doesn’t mean that we should take our foot off the gas on climate investment, climate resilience investments, but the two do work together. So that’s, that’s, you know, the main thing that I’d like them to take away.
T: Akin, this report, and the Florida Wildlife Corridor have gotten really broad support bipartisan support, even many may consider apolitical support. What do you think it is about this project that has made that possible that others around the world could learn for ways to collaborate in this such an important area?
AO: Thank you. To some degree, I guess I’m a hopeless optimist. But I think when you’re trying to do the right thing, most people do want to do the right thing. And the key is to be able to provide information in a way that’s non pressuring, what that really makes the case in a very compelling way. I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a number of things I’ve been that way in Florida, this is one of them. Everglades restoration is another way you get support from completely across the board. And when we’re going to talk about managing flood risk, and doing things that are good for people and communities, I think it’s something that you can get support from whatever point of view they might have. I think what’s great about this, and what people should take away from it, is that if you have a good initiative, and you can, in a very objective way, identify what it brings to the table, what it could do for you, in a way that’s easy to understand, you could get good support. The entire group has been working on the wildlife corridor, and the kinds of reports that we’re putting together, how can we enforce that story, and help at that angle that if we just about, something for wildlife, which is good by itself. And it’s the reason why a lot of the decisions made what is also good for us and people who live here, this is the right thing to do. And I think that kind of narrative is a strong one for building contrast. And I think that’s one of the biggest lessons from the corridor, Everglades restoration, that I have.
T: Meredith, this is a clear Florida success story. And it seems that people from all walks of life can get behind the efforts to preserve and conserve the natural beauty and resources they’re in, in nature in Florida. What do you think about that? And what can other areas around the world learn from Florida, for example, leading in this climate resilience?
MB: I think that this speaks to the question you actually posed to Akin in mentioning that, this is, this was bipartisan back in 2021, when the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act was passed, it was supported by both Republican and Democratic leaders in a time when we had political divides across the entire nation. And so the bipartisanship is really special. And I think it shows the importance of the issue at hand, which is protecting what the Act actually states is the foundation of Florida’s economy and our quality of life. And so when people can come together and understand the value for that, in spite of all of the political divides we see, that’s why Florida has been able to take a step out ahead and be able to lead on this effort in terms of protecting these 18 million acres, the effort to protect these 18 million acres. And so you have such a vision for protecting a connected landscape across the state of Florida that we know is going to benefit not only our economy, our quality of life, but now we see through this report all of the tangible benefits that we see for climate resilience if we’re able to protect those remaining 8 million acres that we have as opportunity to do so. And so when we’re talking about being a leader, Florida is setting the stage and setting an example that we hope can be seen across the nation to be able to benefit not only wildlife movement, but our water resources and our climate resilience over time. And knowing that we’re a leader here in protecting the Florida Wildlife Corridor and having a connected landscape across the state, I see a lot of opportunity here for Florida to be leading on the climate resilience front as well, knowing that there’s this double benefit, you’re protecting movement, areas for movement for wildlife, you’re protecting water resources, and you’re protecting land that is going to lead to a climate resilient future for Florida.
T: Colin, tell us what, in your opinion, development and growth for Florida in the future looks like following the prescriptions of your report. And the examples from the earlier question of cities that are already accomplishing this, like the Babcock Ranch and being able to withstand that hurricane. What are some key points that you would like to see over the next decade or more in Florida to follow that?
CP: Well, I did want to expand on that that question earlier about how exactly are we going to expect to see more compact development because it’s not the status quo anywhere in this country, with some exceptions, and there are examples in Florida to point to. Babcock Ranch is very interesting in this regard, but it’s more on the climate resilience side than on the compact development side for land conservation. Not to say that it doesn’t not sprawl, but it’s really excellent at flood risk reduction, and having the households be insulated from to the maximum extent possible disruptions from hurricanes. But there are other examples. For example, Seaside, Florida, which is in the Panhandle, not far it’s on the border, not far from Tallahassee, is an example in Florida, of very intentional, compact development. It’s gone by different names over the years in the architecture and land use planning communities. The philosophy behind it smart growth, new urbanism, for example. And that is the product of intentional work, that local developers and architects and stakeholders came together and made a reality in concert with their elected officials. But I’d also like to highlight that there’s some of this emerging around the country, but also in Florida in a way that I would say is organic. And that’s a positive development in my view. It means there’s less effort required to make it happen. And so you could look just at Downtown Fort Lauderdale as an example. The full core of the city in the last 5-10 years, has dramatically changed in a very compact oriented way. And that extends into the more suburban areas as well. And the reason is not that there’s been a strong zoning, push, but that the market is asking for it. And so consumers in certain population segments such as like we have hear, a young and upwardly mobile population. They’re demanding it in developers respond to demand.
T: We will chat here on the Zoom chat the link to the embargoed report details. This is under embargo until April the 16th at 9am. So media, please honor that embargo and nothing can be published about it until then. That will conclude our event. We’ll share the recording and the transcript with media afterward. For now, have a great rest of your day. Thanks and good luck.
