Islanders want to be consulted on decisions regarding 20/20 preserves
A meeting with the Lee County Parks Department regarding a saw palmetto berry picking pilot program has some islanders shaking their heads.
According to fifth-generation islander and active civic member Noel Andress, Pine islanders were not informed about the program, which allowed the picking of the berries, a food critical to wild-life, to the Pine Island Flatwoods Preserve, a Conservation 20/20 property.
County officials say the picking was simply a one-off exploratory measurement taken for analysis.
The county used a certified permitted vendor to harvest the berries, which also have a commercial value and so are often illegally picked by poachers.
The pilot program was intended to see if permitted picking, through the county, would mitigate illegal harvesting, county spokesperson Betsy Clayton said, adding the county is not considering a palmetto berry harvest, the exercise has concluded, and that no further exploratory harvestings are planned at this time.
The vendor, JWT Enterprises of Southwest Florida LLC, completed its contracted-for services in August. Clayton said that in exchange for permitting this, the certified vendor was required to:
– Provide security on the preserve to ensure that illegal activity was not occurring.
– Remove any litter on the preserve.
– Maintain at least 20% of the berries on each plant for wildlife.
– Provide 50% of the value of the harvest to the county.
Revenue generated that came back to the county totaled $15,696.71. Clayton said the money will go to operations and maintenance of 20/20 preserves.
“The county will work with stakeholders, and then updates will be provided to County Administration, CLASAC and the Board of County Commissioners,” Clayton said.
Environmentalists were unhappy nonetheless.
“Citizens of Pine Island have contributed their hard-earned dollars to buy these preserves, so we’d like to be consulted on decisions impacting the preserves. Preserves should not be managed for resource extraction,” Andress said.
More than 17,000 pounds of berries were harvested in an attempt to alleviate the issue of pirate berry pickers, Andress said.
He also questioned the program’s implementation.
“If you actually go out to the site, the berries were picked and apparently the 20 percent they left were just left in a pile. That’s not the proper management of a preserve,” said Andress.
County officials said the program was both properly implemented and managed.
“The purpose of the exploratory exercise was to try a different strategy to curb the illegal harvesting,” Clayton said in an email. “When the exploratory exercise was happening, county supervisors and rangers were on site during the entire harvest. The 20% of berries that were not removed were left on the plants, unpicked. No piles of berries were left on the ground.”
Andress maintains that it was suggested to the county, if they were having a problem with illegal berry harvesting, a more appropriate action would be to put up wildlife cameras to identify who’s doing it, and also put up signage that says, no berry harvesting.
To the best of his knowledge, these things were not done, he said, adding the question to be addressed is how on-island preserves are managed.
“Up until a year and a half ago, there was a management committee that was responsible for approving all of the management practices,” Andress said. “That sub-committee has since been disbanded so now the whole committee is making decisions regarding management but they’re not hearing about management practices until after the fact. The whole purpose of a preserve is that we have too many residential communities that are encroaching upon wildlife habitat. The idea of a preserve is to set aside these lands and maintain the wildlife and plant protection.”
If you take the resources by harvesting the food, the animals don’t have anything to eat, which could endanger their lives, since they have to then leave their habitat to find sustenance elsewhere. Sustaining plants and wildlife is the reason for the preserve in the first place, he said.
Andress went on to say islanders are concerned about the direction in which the county seems to be heading with this issue because they’ve merged the management section of the preserve with the parks division. Now the parks director is managing county preserves as well as the parks.
“We think that the island residents should have been consulted before they attempted to do a pilot project,” said Andress.
Islanders questioned whether the $15,000 the county received as its share of the pick was going back into management of the preserves, to which Andress said, they received no answer.
“We do not know where the money went,” said Andress. “We really didn’t get the answers we were looking for. We were told they’re doing a thorough analysis, but when I asked the county staff how many gopher tortoises live on the Pine Island Flatwoods Preserve, there was no answer.”
Andress said he also questioned the methods by which leaving 20 percent of the berries was ascertained, since knowing how much each gopher tortoise consumes would be essential.
“It’s not only the gopher tortoises,” said Andress. “It’s also to preserve the plant life, because saw palmettos sometimes take hundreds of years to grow. We want the county not to spend any more time and consideration on this. We would like to ask the county to stop the program right now. It’s wrong. This is not the way to manage preserves, but rather by putting adequate signage, money and resources, such as rangers to overlook the preserves. Before any changes are made on any Pine Island preserves in the future, we would appreciate the opportunity to have a public meeting held on Pine Island.”
This story was updated to include the county’s response. Quotes from county officials did not run in our print edition
CJ Haddad contributed to this report
To reach Paulette LeBlanc, please email pleblanc@breezenewspapers.com