Released by the Florida Park Service ….
It was a great year for Florida State Parks. Rangers, other staff and volunteers welcomed almost 30 million visitors to Florida’s best places.
We are proud that Florida State Parks was recognized this year with a National Gold Medal for being America’s best state parks. I want to share a few other successes that helped define our year.
First, thanks for your support. Visiting state parks helps us protect beloved park landscapes, wildlife and historic places. We’re also grateful for the investment of over one million hours by our 20,000 volunteers and dozens of friends’ groups.
We worked hard to protect natural and cultural resources and saw successes worth celebrating. Silver Springs State Park just earned recognition on the National Register of Historic Places, the shared list of places that define American history. We’re excited about the growing popularity of cultural events like the Florida Folk Festival. Park storytelling resonates and unites people from every walk of life.
Preserving and restoring park landscapes depends on skilled, dedicated people. Working in difficult terrain, staff applied prescribed fire to a record area larger than Philadelphia. With help from the Florida Conservation Corps, staff and volunteers fought invasive exotic plants on 40,000 acres of park land, an area almost as big as Washington, D.C. This management has many benefits to wildlife such as gopher tortoises and Florida black bears.
We’re also happy to celebrate a successful year for sea turtle nesting. State parks protect 108 miles of sandy beaches where turtle teams conduct surveys every day during nesting season. This has been a great season with over 8,000 nests recorded.
This year, we hosted hundreds of Park Fit events including ranger-guided bike rides, yoga classes and 5K runs in partnership with local organizations. We now have 2,200 miles of both unpaved and paved multi-use trails that are favorite destinations for walking, running, cycling and strolling with family.
We’re grateful to the Governor’s Office and the Legislature for passing budgets that invest in state parks. Thanks also to our staff who go to work every day thinking about how to do the best for Florida’s best places.
Finally, thank you for being a park champion — you can visit and volunteer to help make 2020 even better.
Celebrate Florida State Parks’ 85th Anniversary with us at your local park.
Eric Draper