FL Estuary Awareness w/ Guest, Leatherback Roasters
Good Morning everyone, It’s Friday and as you’re reading this I’m probably dialing in some coffee from our guest roasters Nathan and Grace who go by “Leatherback,” out of Longwood FL. Longwood is Sort of Northeast of Orlando in the way we’re sort of Southeast of Jacksonville. We do these guest roaster takeovers between seasonal menus to help us source seasonal ingredients and get some feedback, while still keeping the core menu exciting. This year we’re shooting for all Florida features so we can keep these relationships we build tight, and hopefully make an impact.
This year “making an impact” meant helping smaller roasters make connections across the state so we could support them financially short term and long term with our cafe and our audience spreading the word. It’s gone pretty well so far, Floridians tend to travel up and down the state, so we’ve heard stories of folks buying coffee and then visiting other cafes serving that coffee too.
Though this quarter we want to do something more traditionally eco-humanitarian I guess. Spread some awareness about Florida Estuaries, the new land swaps that are trying to break down protection on local habitats, and protect the sea turtles. Here’s the deal.
Somewhere between Leatherback and Tetherball, going along that long stretch of beachside highway between St. Augustine and Jacksonville Beach is the “Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve” or just “Guana” for short. I think we mostly called it “Ponte Vedra” growing up, we’d use it as an alternative to I95 if we wanted a prettier drive North or we were going to see a concert at the ponte vedra music hall, but sometimes we’d also pull off to kayak or hit the beach. As a really little kid I was in a junior ranger camp where we’d walk along the coast and eat salty river plants and hold fish.
Guana is an Estuary, from their website gtmnerr.org “Serving as the meeting point between freshwater rivers and saltwater seas, estuaries boast unparalleled biodiversity and act as vital nurseries for countless marine species. These dynamic ecosystems also provide essential habitat for migratory birds, serving as key rest stops during their journeys.”
A few weeks back as I was getting ready for this takeover, with one weeks notice a land swap for Guana was proposed by a private LLC, which would have swapped 600 acres of state protected land for a few thousand acres of tiny private land parcels across Florida. here was the proposed swap, here’s an article explaining it. This short notice “land swap” method has been used to quickly and quietly buy up protected land to be transparently, literally, developed in to golf courses; Or at least sell to private shell company LLC land owners since, this has all become more transparent and controversial.
here’s an article from the tampa bay times about the one that happened late last year in the state forest near crystal river, where we spent our wedding a few months later; That morning we got up early to see Manatees in an Estuary that was both beautiful, and kind of the entire tourist industry keeping that area of the state thriving, with river tours and orange groves surrounding it. Quintessential Florida stuff.
I’m getting off track. So this Land Swap goes up for Guana, we have a weeks notice before it’s voted on. Guana is a huge conservation site for leatherback turtles, so I got Leatherback Roasters on the phone right away about what we could do to raise awareness and collaborate. With such short notice it was kind of a, well regardless of what happens we want to do what we can to spread awareness for what’s happening and put some money in to the state parks.
Here’s what we came up with, we’ll donate $5 of every retail bag we sell from Leatherback to Guana’s Adopt a Nest program, where for $100 you can be a “Turtle Friend” and for $300 you can be a “Turtle Guardian” where we can get photos of a real nest and permission to visit. Once we sell all the retail bags we’re eligible for the program, but if people donate there are even higher tiers, so we’ll put out a donation link here and at the cafe. If we raise enough money we’ll have photos of our turtles and be allowed to visit the nests, obviously we’ll share with everyone and hang them up.
So Guana was voted on last week at the time of writing, and they decided against the swap. Shout out Clay Murphy and everyone at St johns public affairs for their response about land conservation here. Despite that though, the initial response I was seeing from those actually responsible for voting (can’t find it now) was something like “well this would’ve protected more land, but you all seem mad so nevermind.” I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s happening, and that if they knew, they’d agree. So let’s keep talking about it. Land Swaps are a tool to buy up protected land and destroy protected ecosystems. These state parks are so valuable to all Floridians, springs parks beaches plants and animals. I think as long as we’re all on the same page they’ll stay that way. Thanks for reading everyone, and thanks to Leatherback for being on board with this.
