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Activists Push For Coast Preservation

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 26, 2007

SEFFNER - North of the Tampa Bay area is a 170-mile stretch of wooded land that contributes to the health of the Gulf of Mexico.

It's called The Nature Coast. And if the state doesn't buy large chunks of it, that Gulf protection might disappear, a conservationist told members of the Suncoast Native Plant Society last week.

Joe Murphy, a native Floridian and the new Florida program coordinator for the Gulf Restoration Network, also lobbied for his group's active program to get big-box stores and community gardeners to stop selling and using cypress mulch.

Every time someone plunks down $1.99 for a bag of chipped cypress, he said, they are contributing to destruction of natural wetland forests, which help filter stormwater runoff and protect the coastline when hurricanes roll in.

The group met at the Hillsborough County Extension Office for its monthly gathering.

Both the Nature Coast and the cypress mulch issue are subjects on the radar for members of the plant society, locally and on a state level, said Shirley Denton of Thonotosassa, president of the Florida Native Plant Society.

She said the state chapter is writing a policy on the cypress issue to offer to state officials.

Denton and others encouraged Murphy's group to promote alternative economies, such as ecotourism and fishing, in Nature Coast communities that otherwise might lean toward less environmentally friendly endeavors such phosphate mines, lumber mills and residential development.

People in coastal Dixie County, for example, won't willingly sell their land to the state for preservation if they can't be assured of an alternate income, Denton said.

Murphy agreed there is work to be done.

'The only thing that has saved the Nature Coast this long is that it has no beach,' said Murphy, who recently opened the Florida office for the Network in Hernando County.

'There are miles and miles of pristine rivers flowing into that part of the Gulf,' he said. Manatees and sea turtles thrive in the shallow seagrass flats off the coast. In fact, he said, up to 40 percent of marine life in the Gulf spends a portion of its life in that area.

'We are running out of areas in Florida where we can think in terms of landscape, whole coastlines or interconnected ecosystems' where there may be a chance for animals such as black bears and panthers to survive, Murphy told the group.

He urged society members to write state and local elected officials, seeking more money for preservation during the current lull in Florida's real estate market.

Murphy also elaborated on the need to lobby against the sale and use of cypress mulch.

Wal-Mart recently announced it no longer will buy cypress mulch from Louisiana. The downside of that, he said, is it will put more pressure on cypress forests outside of Louisiana, a state that suffered tremendously from Hurricane Katrina, partly because of its loss of coastal wetlands.

'It's not just about saying no,' Murphy said. 'It's also about saying yes' to alternative mulches like sustainable eucalyptus or melaleuca mulch, made from an invasive species that needs to be removed in Florida, he said.

'I don't think any of the members here use cypress mulch,' Suncoast society President Harriett Wright said. 'But we probably should be out there more telling friends and neighbors.'

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 657-4532.

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