Mrs. Hughes' lecture on the history of the area as she experienced it gave me a much better sense of place than reading a history book saying the same things ever could have. Reading someone's personal story or reading about an area's history can sometimes be powerful, but hearing a person's or area's history from the source is so much more immersive. Just knowing they went through what they're describing gives their words so much more power. It's the difference between reading about the Holocaust in a textbook and hearing a speech given by a Holocaust survivor, in a way. Her story about the German soldier who came on shore to see a movie during World War II and left his uniform in the bushes has stuck with me ever since the field trip. It's a scary story even if nothing happened to any of the residents!
Based on her long life on the island, I've got a feeling Mrs. Hughes' sense of place is deeply entrenched in Estero Island. She was born there, she has lived their all her life, and when her time comes, she will probably be laid to rest on her island so she will never have to truly leave it. If there were a graveyard inside the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park I hold so dear to my heart, I'd want to be buried there too because of how central it is to my sense of place. Her choice to live on such a small area of land for so long makes me think she has a nature-centric economic perspective and doesn't want urban development to take away the beauty of Estero Island. What we saw about development on Estero Island in the past versus the present (photo below) makes me certain of her point of view on the matter. After walking on the boardwalks and hanging out in the pavilion, I understand why she feels that way and gives talks to classes like ours.
So much about the Fort Myers area is still a mystery to me because it's not my native place, so the Conservation 20/20 program is certainly something I didn't know about before we went on our field trip and was the first such preserve I've ever been to. From what I gathered from research, the program acquires environmentally important land, restores it through all sorts of ways like reducing pollution and making sure the food chain is in order to keep the ecosystem going, and turns them into public recreational opportunities while making sure doing so doesn't harm the land. Conservation 20/20 started coming together in the 90s when citizens noticed the rate of urbanization/development in the area and wanted to make sure land was set aside for conservation. Since then, they've acquired dozens of preserves throughout Lee County so we don't get back down to having just 10% of the land set aside for conservation.
Using tax dollars for land preservation is a great idea and is just as much as an investment in the future as tax dollars being used to fund public schools. Public school funding enables our children to become the best and brightest for our future, but funding for land preservation works to make sure those children will have a stable, healthy world to live in while they use their education to change things. If citizens had the choice of picking and choosing what causes their tax dollars went to (it's a good thing we don't sometimes, but this is just a what-if), I'd love to see a good chunk of my taxes go to preserving the environment. I've read enough speculative fiction to have a good picture of what the world could become if we don't take care of the environment by using our money to keep it healthy.
My beloved Suwannee has already been semi-developed to make room for campers of all kinds, music festivals, and general visitors, but even with all the pipes and power lines, it still feels like an untouched place. It's carved out of nature and surrounded by it, not something that bulldozed over nature to make itself a place. Part of why I love it is how I can jump on a small electric golf cart and ride the trails while massive spiderwebs stretch between trees and the owners tell me how so-and-so had to be rushed to the hospital after a rattlesnake bite in the park. It's modern and natural all at once. Seeing every trail be paved over or watching all the trees be cut down for some big urban development would hurt me so much I'd never be able to return.
The Matanzas Pass preserve existing in a place like Fort Myers Beach doesn't surprise me at all. The shops and condos around it are built for the tourists who use them, but places like the preserve are fought for by the people who live there year-round because it's important to them. Since the snowbird, to use the colloquial term, are only here for part of the year, they may not realize how necessary conservation of the area is, Year-round residents who have been living here for years or even decades do know and understand how important it is not to let tourism take over the area. Without preserved areas set aside for plants like the red mangrove trees we saw, we'd have a lot less protection against floods and hurricanes. That's just one of the innumerable benefits of the preserves!
Sure, the city girl in me was horrified by any mention of spiders and got a little creeped out whenever we saw a crab on the mangroves, but I can still recognize the value of the environment for all those creatures is greater than my desire to be rid of them. (Except maybe the spiders. It's hard to appreciate them after I found one in my hair inches from my face.)
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