MARCO EAGLE

Healing the land: Panther Island barbecue puts developmental mitigation on display

Lance Shearer
Correspondent

There are vast swaths of land in Southwest Florida, miles inland from the densely populated coastal strip. Once, much of this land was pristine wilderness, with wetlands that were part of the natural sheet flow that created the area’s rich and unique habitat.

Ginger Ross of Wild Florida displays an invasive tegu lizard. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.

Between urbanization, agriculture and a “drain the swamp” mentality, humans have had major impacts on the land in Southwest Florida, often in ways that are deleterious to its long-term sustainability. While development and urbanization proceed, and continue to impact formerly natural lands, there are dedicated environmentalists working to reverse — mitigate — the scars of human activity, and return them to their historical condition.

One major effort, a decades-long process, is taking place in the interior of northern Collier County, at the Panther Island Mitigation Bank. With the project taking place far away from the public eye, once a year the organizations that are performing the work hold an open house to showcase their progress, and help remind people the effort is there and worthy of support.

Visitors get the tour on swamp buggies. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.

This is the Panther Island Annual BBQ. This year, it took place on the Friday before Veterans Day. Close to 300 people from the environmental, natural preservation and rural communities met, miles down a limerock road that itself was nine more miles east of Interstate 75.

The area being mitigated abuts Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary to the south, and Corkscrew and the Florida Audubon Society have been instrumental in making it happen. Attendees at the barbecue heard from Corkscrew Director Jason Lauritsen, who spoke of the importance of keeping wild land wild, and helping to restore lands to replace those lost to development.

Maria Jose Manahan, 6, rides the world's gentlest pony. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.

The goal of “no net loss of wetlands,” he said, goes back to the first President George Bush in the 1980s, and a flood in 1995 that helped environmental managers understand “this is all one big watershed. We realized we had to stop building in historic flowways.”

The Panther Island project is an enormous area, with two phases being restored one after the other. The first phase consists of 2,800 acres, what had been agricultural pasture land being restored to a wetlands ecosystem. Phase Two adds another 1,649 acres, so together they add up to 4,449 acres, or seven “sections” in land use parlance — just under seven square miles of land. This is restoration on a grand scale. But that acreage must be measured against 50,000 acres of wetlands lost during in the last 15 years, said Lauritsen.

Ginger Ross of Wild Florida displays Einstein the eagle owl. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.

Bill Barton, a managing partner representing the investors who have put up funds for the Panther Island mitigation effort, attended the barbecue along with Ray Miller, his former partner in Naples-based land use consultants Wilson, Miller, Barton, Soll and Peek.

Barton told the group the site is a perfect example of how a public/private partnership can work. This area was “old fallow farmland — tomatoes, peppers, cukes, lots of watermelon,” and is now being restored to its original wildness.

The Panther Island Mitigation Bank, he stressed, is intended to be a profit-making venture.

Participants "meat up" in the buffet line. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.

“We get to improve the environment in Southwest Florida, and make a little money.”

Attendees rode towering open swamp buggies out into the project to view the work-in-progress up close. There were rides on gentle ponies for the kids, and animals from Wild Florida on display, including an invasive tegu lizard and a European eagle owl named Einstein.

Phoenix the panther looks over the land his ancestors once ruled. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.

The reclusive star of the show was Phoenix, a Florida panther, who stayed in his cage, but seemed to be surveying the land around him, land his ancestors once ruled as the apex predators. But the real star was the acreage itself, slowly being returned to its natural state. The multi-stage process involves removing the topsoil, scraping the land down to a sustainable wetland level, replacing the topsoil, and seeding it with native vegetation.

“This land was tomato fields, nothing but bare ground. Now, after five years, the birds are coming back. I just saw a black-bellied whistling duck,” said Corkscrew board member Sharon Stilwell, praising the restorative power of nature, especially when teamed with millions of dollars in earth moving and seeding of indigenous plants. “Now it’s coming back to what it should be. This is what Florida looked like before it got destroyed.”

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary director Jason Lauritsen, right, speaks with Corkscrew board members and staffers. Environmentalists and preservationists gathered the Friday before Veterans Day for the annual Panther Island BBQ off Corkscrew Road, celebrating the restoration of thousands of acres of interior Collier County.