Just as the scandal of State Park in Florida State Park fades, new country agreements make anxiety

Guana River Wildlife Management Area – Floridian of all political beliefs expressed a shock last year when they found out that their state parks were in the eye for development.

Now that governor Ron Desantis can sign the law to preserve the state park to end this saga, another could begin soon.

In this case, it is the possible trade of 600 acres of the Guana River Wildlife Management area in the northeast of Florida to a recently formed private company – and it has residents and conservationists on the side.

The proposal was created on Wednesday evening, when a little -known committee of the Environmental Protection Department in Florida published an agenda for a previously unscheduled meeting next Wednesday.

The private company that was looking for the country, the Upland LLC, was founded in February, as annual reports show. It is unclear what the country would do. The proposal states that “a large part of the wetland area is avoided”, the vague wording that has raised the suspicion that The country would be developed.

The deal comes after the The state's public district director in the past eight years, Callie Dehaven, resigned abruptly last week. Dehaven's letter of withdrawal, which was received by Tampa Bay Times, is a sentence that is handwritten in a blue pen on a sheet with lined paper.

“If you are concerned, I hereby re -put my position,” it says. Dehaven did not respond to e -mails or a text from the time when he applied for a comment.

Critics of the exchange refer to parallel to the Park scandal of last summer. Among the similarities: the state hurries a previously unannounced meeting and a publicly unknown The focus is on entity.

In exchange for the 600 hectares of state country, the Hochland LLC would exchange 3,066 tomorrow from a constellation of packages in four counties. The state says that the country that would receive it in return – about five acres for every hectare it gives – would expand rooms for wild animals to roam through.

When the Times asked what the state had been told about the intentions of Hochland LLC for the country in St. John's County, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection pointed out the proposal on the agenda, which does not clearly surround the desired land use. Nobody replied when the Times called the telephone number in the business information of the Hochland -LLC.

Ed McGinley, Professor of Natural Sciences at Flagler College near the wildlife area, said that he was shocked when he found out about the proposed land exchange on Friday morning.

McGinley brought his students with dozens of travel to the wilderness around the wildlife area.

On hikes, he asks his students to be quiet, being present and watching the animals around them: Indigo snakes, Scrub lizards and the cacophony of birds that sing from the trees mentioned above.

“Everything is connected,” said McGinley. “At some point we have to see that we cannot continue to work as usual-we cannot be clear natural areas and hope for the best.”

McGinley said that the community in St. Johns County was still nervous after the Desantis administration's proposal last year to build a lodge over the fragile coastal habitat of Anastasia State Park.

Hundreds lined the streets near the park in St. Augustine last summer to demonstrate their opposition to the parking development proposals. Protests against this country exchange are planned for this weekend.

“We just did this with the State Parks, and now we have to do it again,” he said.

Another aspect that makes this exchange unusual is that it is dependent on a law that has not been designed for this purpose.

In the proposal, a section of state law cites that enables people to have the country alongside state country to apply for an exchange as long as they agreed to restrict the future development to “all or part” of the entire swath.

This law was sponsored by the former Rep. Matt Caldwell, a Republican from North Fort Myers, who said that it was intended to increase the number of open spaces, while private owners and cattle breeders help with their administration. The properties that were together would be those who were subject to the exchange.

In this case, the private country is not offered in addition to the area of ​​wildlife management. The fact that the company has the country next door in the state is only used to strengthen its legal right at the request of trade.

“The entire purpose of the land exchange language was to have more land in nature conservation so that we have water charging, we have space for the bears and the panthers,” said Caldwell. “This was never designed for a kind of intensive development goals.”

On Friday afternoon, Matt Chipperfield drove his skiff through the still saltless of the Guana River and slid past a herd of Rosa Roseate spoon, which waded in the apartments.

Wild oaks and palms towered over to the sky behind the birds, a few hundred feet away. Just a day before, Chipperfield was horrified when he found out that the state suggested that this precise bird bird to swap in a shady, rushed and unfair proposal, he said.

“This is one of the last real traces of Old Florida that we have left,” said the Captain of Fischerei Charter with an anxious sigh.

“The best word I can think of is” frightened “. I'm afraid to lose it.”