Volunteer in the New Year on Virginia Key

Volunteers have replanted native species throughout the island.

Resolved: in the new year to do something for nature on Virginia Key

Go ahead, make Virginia Key part of your New Year’s resolutions and join the community effort to protect and preserve one of our community’s natural jewels.

Here are  some of the volunteer organizations working to restore the natural environment on Virginia Key and throughout South Florida:

Urban Paradise Guild.
www.urban-paradise.org
“Our mission is to re-create native habitats in the Urban areas of Miami-Dade County, and to promote sustainable models for healthy living that safeguard, enhance and integrate the human and natural worlds for the benefit of both.”

Tropical Audubon Society
www.tropicalaudubon.org
“We believe in the wisdom of nature's design. We seek to foster and promote ecological conscientiousness in our community.”

Sierra Club, Miami Group
http://florida.sierraclub.org/miami/
"Our mission is to enjoy and protect the natural places in South Florida, to teach others to understand and respect the fragile environment in which we live, and to practice and promote the responsible use of South Florida's ecosystems and resources."

Citizens for a Better South Florida
www.abettersouthlflorida.org
“Citizens is dedicated to providing environmental education, particularly to the under-served community, that inspires active stewardship and preservation of the South Florida environment.”

TREEmendous Miami
www.treemendousmiami.org
“TREEmendous Miami consists of a dedicated group of people who like to plant trees so that we can make Miami-Dade a greener, cooler, healthier and more enjoyable environment in which to live. Our environment is our number one concern.”

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Two centuries plus 740 species = one new hammock

Recreating a tropical hammock on Virginia Key -- where the removal of exotic, invasive species has left a moonscape-- is no casual gardening project. 

“This is as rigorous a restoration as I can do,” said Gary Hunt, a volunteer who has been planning the Nov. 6 TREEmendous Miami planting project at Historic Virginia Key Beach for two years. 

You could say, however, this has been in the works over the span of almost two centuries.  

The species list used to select the 740 native trees, shrubs and ground cover plants that will be planted by volunteersis based on the records of plant explorers going back to the 18th century, most notably  the  work of John Kunkel Small.   

Small was one of the first American botanists to explore Florida, beginning in 1901. For nearly 40 years, Small returned to collect specimens and photograph natural landscapes. He recognized early on how Florida’s unique natural treasures were being systematically destroyed and wrote about it in his seminal work, From Eden to Sahara -- Florida’s Tragedy. 

South Florida is one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America - with more than 1,400 species of native plants. And yet...the unparalleled disturbance and destruction of critical habitats has brought an alarming loss of species, according to the Institute for Regional Conservation (IRC), a private, nonprofit dedicated to the protection, restoration and long-term management of biodiversity. 

Small conservation projects, like the replanting of the tropical hammock on Virginia Key, are critical  to the protection of the rarest plants in the region, according to the IRC. 

The plants selected for Virginia Key provided by the Citizens for a Better South Florida nursery come from seed sources collected by City of Miami biologist Juan Fernandez. Fernandez has already restored a 13-acre maritime hammock on the island, which is  considered the best example of this forest type in Miami-Dade County, according to a recent biological study of Virginia Key conducted by Miami-Dade County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands Program. 

With the help of dedicated volunteers, the strangler fig, sea grape, cocoplum, pigeon plum, saw palmetto, wild coffee and myriad other species found in Fernandez’ restored hammock will soon be proliferating throughout the island, creating habitat for songbirds and butterflies as well as wonder and joy for the rest of us. 

@2010 All Rights Reserved

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