Florida Forever - Florida for Awhile

[lindab]

Spend some time this summer enjoying Florida's parks, state forests, water management conservation lands, and Florida Trust properties. Thie is probably the end of this program. Thanks, House legislators.

From: Erin McCallum
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:49 AM
Subject: NEWS RELEASE: Florida Forever, No More

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 6, 2009

Florida Forever, no more
Florida Legislature ends 20-year conservation program

This week, the Florida Legislature ended funding for Florida Forever; a 20-year- old land conservation program that is exceedingly popular with Floridians, and a piece of legislation that has enabled the purchase of land for the good of Florida’s wild inhabitants as well as our own economic well being. To date, the program has protected more than 2.5 million acres of forest, parks and wilderness areas.

Below is a statement by Laurie Macdonald, Florida program director for Defenders of Wildlife:

“It is so disappointing that, for the first time in two decades, our leaders decided that funding to conserve Florida’s treasured natural resources is expendable. This is the furthest thing from the truth; a healthy environment and a healthy community go hand-in-hand and you cannot parse out protecting natural resources from our economic health. In fact, every dollar invested in green infrastructure and conservation pays back one hundred fold to Florida’s economy.

“This move was extremely short-sighted; with land prices at record lows, it would be advantageous to utilize conservation dollars as a means to put direct economic stimulus dollars from these purchases directly into the hands of Florida’s private sector.

“This is a huge loss for all of Florida and we expect that Governor Crist and state  lawmakers will work hard to restore funding for this critical program next year.”


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[tufsu1]

It is unfortunate, but lets not be too dramatic...

The program funds land acquisition, not maintenance of existing parks and state forests...it just means that far less additional land will be acquired in the future.

Moreover, this may be a temporary thing....its pretty hard to argue for land acquisition $ in a year when state employees are taking a pay cut, teachers are being laid off, and so on.

Perhaps when revenues increase, this very popular program will be funded again....or maybe Floridians need to figure out that their "wants" aren't free and stop arguing for lower taxes.   

[mtraininjax]

Well, if they can get the signatures, they can always get a license plate to help them fund their initiatives.