The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) announced the “Great Outdoors Initiative” on Aug. 19, a proposal to add new recreation centers, courts and lodging at nine parks around the state. 

The bill was quickly withdrawn on Aug. 26, following an onslaught of protests and demands from citizens to protect their state parks. 

Gov. Ron DeSantis shared in a press conference on Aug. 28, shortly following the announcement, that someone had leaked the plethora of proposals for additions to the parks, including Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound. He stated that those in charge of the plans would be sent back to the “drawing board” to rework the project.

James Gaddis, a former FDEP employee, leaked the proposal’s contents to warn people about the company’s plans. He revealed to the Tampa Bay Times in an interview that the company fired him.

The project’s withdrawal does not add up to its inexistence. However, the FDEP plans to re-evaluate the project and gauge communities’ needs and opinions before bringing it back to light sometime next year, according to sources close to Gov. DeSantis as shared by WPTV.

Students and staff at FAU are concerned that this bill may come back, and that it could lead to more development plans on state parks, providing a threat to heavily protected natural environments, including over 3,000 government-managed areas around the state.

Charlie, who requested her last name be withheld for privacy, is a senior at FAU  currently pursuing a degree in urban and regional planning. She said that this proposal will achieve the exact opposite of what the FDEP is meant to do.

“FDEP once again fails to do the very thing it was created for… environmental protection,” she said.

Peter Ricci, the director of hospitality and tourism management at FAU, argues the proposals would likely harm the environment they seek to enhance. 

“Adding pickleball and hotels to these parks would completely destroy the beauty of the environments we have right now,” said Ricci. “I wouldn’t be a fan of it either unless there was sufficient space and it could be done in a completely sustainable way, which is not possible with as many courses as the FDEP was thinking of.” 

One of the proposals for Anastasia State Park in St. Augustine offered depictions of expanded lodging options, including a 350-room lodge. Another sought to construct golf courses on Martin County’s Jonathan Dickinson Park. 

The initiative began as an executive order signed into state law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in October 2023, implementing temporary discounts on annual passes to parks around the state, including Martin County’s Jonathan Dickinson Park, located about 20 minutes northeast of FAU’s Jupiter Campus.

The order inspired the FDEP’s proposal on Aug. 19, announced via a press release from the FDEP’s Press Office in Tallahassee.

“Today’s announcement reinforces the DeSantis Administration’s record support for conserving our natural landscapes and commitment to ensuring every Floridian can visit and recreate at Florida’s state parks,” the release stated.

Shortly following the proposals’ release of the proposals, the FDEP organized several public meetings for community members to join in and share their opinions on the proposed plans for the parks. 

As a result of an overwhelming amount of protests and public outcry against the plans, community members united to conserve their land. 

At Jonathan Dickinson State Park on Aug. 24, dozens of community members gathered to protest. Many expressed their disapproval of the development of these parks. Similarly, footage at Miami’s Oleta River State Park demonstrates people of all ages and backgrounds going to the park to protest the plans on Aug. 27. 

A change.org petition intended to stop the motion of the plans to build golf courses on Jonathan Dickinson Park, has received over 130,000 signatures since the proposals’ announcement. 

Munaf Alam, a sophomore in biological sciences at FAU, expressed his outrage regarding the proposal, sharing the disastrous outcomes it may have led to.

“I was so upset at the bill when I first heard of it; it disgusted me to my core. The place where we currently live in South Florida was once the Everglades; we have destroyed it enough, so why destroy it even more?” said Alam.

Beth Dowdy, an anthropology Ph.D. student at American University in Washington D.C., believes in protecting these parks. Dowdy related the conservation of Florida parks to the conservation of the Louisiana coast, which is the focal point of her doctoral research.

“One thing that has become clear is that if you do not conserve natural land or wildlife, the impacts of climate change are going to be evermore apparent; and being in Lousiana or in Florida where you are on a coast, these conservation spots can serve as a protection barrier,” she said.

The Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) is one of many federally-funded organizations that help conserve natural land along coasts. The CBRA helps protect these natural lands and provides relief to coastal cities around them. 

According to a 2019 study from the Journal of Coastal Research, the CBRA was able to reduce federal disaster response expenditures by over 9 billion dollars from 1989 to 2013 and can save anywhere from 11 billion to 108 billion dollars by the year 2068.

Chelsea Wisner is the director of land protection at Conservation Florida, a Land Trust conservation group that works to protect Florida’s wildlife. Wisner believes in the importance of preserving natural land across the state.

“All around the state, we are aiming to preserve local ecological cultural heritage, that if it were not preserved, it would be lost, because it would be pushed aside and buried and be another development,” she said. 

Wisner further expressed the unique opportunity preserving pieces of untouched land provides, sharing that these lands are not replicable. 

“To me, the conservation of these natural habitats is inherently important because they exist and have found their way to modern history with us; they are unique and they are not something you can replicate elsewhere, and it is going to be really hard to communicate why certain plants and birds are important unless we have it to show,” she said.

Gabriela Quintero is a Staff Writer for the University Press. For more information regarding this story or others, contact her at gquintero2022@fau.edu.