How to Save Land in Your Neighborhood

One person's attempts to preserve local eagle and gopher tortoise habitat provide an inspiration -- and some good tips -- for us all.

Maureen Parent can tell you about the gopher tortoises in her neighborhood. She can hold her own during meetings with the mayor and county commission. She knows about the kinds of permits to pull before constructing housing. And she can attract television news crews to cover a live event.

Yet Parent isn't a biologist, politician, real estate developer or public relations pro. She is a soft-spoken school library media assistant with a keen interest in preserving Florida's wildlife, natural lands and history (perhaps like many of us) -- and she is doing just that.

Without any admitted previous knowledge about how to go about saving vacant land for preservation, Parent has spent the past year focusing her efforts -- and her neighborhood's attention -- on a piece of property and is now getting close to seeing the land protected. What she has learned of how to go about preserving land is information everyone can use in their own hometowns as sprawl advances on pockets of important habitats.

Land for Sale

Parent began her quest last year, when she noticed a "for sale" sign posted on vacant land near her house in Titusville. Knowing the land is home to several gopher tortoises (considered a species of special concern in Florida) and an active bald eagle nest in a pine forest, she wondered if the land could be preserved instead of turned into a housing development.

"It's in my backyard," Parent said, "I think that's what really gives you a kick," to take action.

After inquiring about the land, known as Indian Mound Station, Parent discovered there are about 300 acres there, along with a native burial mound that had been documented by archeologists. That was encouraging. But then she found out that a development company owns 54 of those acres, and it was forging ahead with plans to build houses directly across from her backyard -- and directly on top of where several gopher tortoises live, which horrified her.

Parent turned to the Internet to research what to do next and contacted several environmental groups, she said. Whom did she need to talk to about getting the land preserved? What paperwork was involved? Who would be behind her? How did she find out who owned the land? Parent had so many questions, and it seemed like such a large task.

"You e-mail them and ask, ‘What do I do?'" Parent said. "And then from there, they usually tell you, ‘You should contact this person and this person.' And then you contact them, and they tell you, ‘You should contact this other person,'" Parent said, although undeterred. "I got a lot of e-mails back saying, ‘Start here, do this, do that.' Whatever they said, I tried to do it. And then you get a big ring of people that you're e-mailing and asking what to do. I was e-mailing and calling everybody I could think of."

All Aboard

After meeting with several people, including Titusville Mayor Ron Swank, she got the attention of Brevard County's Environmentally Endangered Lands program (EEL), which identifies and preserves ecologically significant areas throughout the county.

"The Indian Mound site is one of those rare areas that is significant both for its natural and human history qualities," said Anne Birch, EEL manager.

But before the site could be preserved, Parent thought, it needed to be cleaned up.

"People had been bringing their garbage out there and just dumping it," Parent said. "I mean, up on the top of the Indian mound. How did they get it up there?" After getting permission from the landowners to access the property, Parent contacted county group Keep Brevard Beautiful and organized a volunteer cleanup of the site during a Trash Bash event.

In order to get people to volunteer for the cleanup and to garner support for the possible future EEL site, Parent had to tell people about it. She started right in her own neighborhood, American Village, where she and a neighbor walked door to door to deliver a newsletter she created.

The community responded. Some of them helped out with the cleanup; others helped look for tortoise burrows, Parent said. "There was a lot of people getting involved in this."

Soon, Parent's mission became the neighborhood's mission, too, and they eventually formed the Indian Mound Station Preservation Alliance. "We named ourselves!" giggled Parent, the president.

Finding Support

With EEL's guiding hand, Parent said she showed up at a county commission meeting in May about a tax referendum that would possibly provide funds to save what was left of the land near her house. She set up a large map and handed the commissioners folders full of wildlife photos taken at the site, and letters of recommendation from all the groups in her e-mail ring: the county historical society, city of Titusville, Seminole nation, Florida Department of State, League of Women Voters, Sierra Club, Brevard Nature Alliance, Partnership for a Sustainable Future and other groups.

And that was the worst part for Parent.

"I'm doing things I would never do!" Parent exclaimed. "I've been pushing myself. Normally, I would not get up and talk in front of anybody. I hate that. I had to do a lot of praying even before I could get up."

Reading from written notes (so she "wouldn't get frazzled"), Parent defied her fear of public speaking and told the commission about the land. The gopher tortoises and Indian mound couldn't just be wiped out, she told commissioners. They agreed to put it on the ballot. (Brevard residents had yet to vote on the referendum, in November, as of this writing.)

"Preserving land in Brevard, and throughout Florida, has been successful as a result of grassroots citizen efforts," Birch said. "Maureen exemplifies what citizens can do to create awareness and initiate change in their community."

Parent once again had to get the approval of all of the property's landowners so EEL could visit the property, in July. Of the 300 acres, EEL ultimately decided that a 122-acre portion of it -- including the burial mound and eagle nest -- is a good candidate for preservation. This portion also backs up to Holder County Park, which could be beneficial to preservation efforts.

Burial Mound

Now, the Indian Mound Station Preservation Alliance and EEL are hoping that tax referendum and state funds come through so they can buy the land. EEL is preparing to ask the state to add 3 properties to the Florida Forever program, which buys land throughout the state for conservation. More than 1.25 million acres have been acquired through Florida Forever and its preceding program.

If state funds are denied, then another source of funding might be the Archaeological Conservancy, Parent said. This group is interested in preserving the burial mound, which is thought to have been created by the Ais tribe several hundred years ago.

"[The Archaeological Conservancy] wants it for the Indian mound. EEL wants it for the scrub habitat. So maybe everybody could be happy, even the tortoises," Parent said. "It would sure be nice to have the burial mound protected from desecration and save some awesome wildlife habitat all in one project."

Because of the mound, it's possible the site could be considered for a National Historic Landmark, according to the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Florida. AIM members claim that the burial site has been looted and are eager to see the land protected if only to respect the dead. Although state law protects unmarked graves, few looters are prosecuted, AIM said.

Parent said that although she didn't know the mound was a burial mound at first, she has discovered a 1920s photo of the mound and has learned that some of the mound's bones and artifacts have been at Harvard University's Peabody Museum for years. In historical documents, the area is known as Salt Lake for the nearby lake and swamp that feed the St. Johns River.

Hope

Encouraged by EEL's interest and the tax referendum vote, Parent recently had more good news: the developer of the 54-acre parcel directly behind her house agreed to let Parent and other volunteers help spot tortoises when bulldozing began, donate 22 acres to the state and leave a 15-foot buffer between the planned Oak at Meadow Woods and Parent's American Village, where many of the tortoises live.

"I wish more developers were like this," Parent said.

Although Indian Mound Station hasn't yet received funding for preservation (as of this writing), Parent is hopeful. "I'm not quite ready to give up yet," Parent said, and you can believe her. "If EEL says there's no way, that will be very sad. Every last little bit of hope ...."

Try It!

1. Don't wait until it's too late. If you see land for sale, find out about it right away. If you wait, the land may be purchased for development. Parent doesn't hesitate to say this is the most important advice she can give. "If I had done this before the developer bought this land behind me, I bet that could have been saved, too," Parent said.
   
   
2. Get other people on board. Getting letters of recommendation from organizations interested in saving the land was one thing Parent did to present her idea to the county. Parent also gives many other people credit in helping her find out next steps, fill out paperwork and know which other people to talk to. "I asked for a lot of advice because I didn't know how to do it," Parent said.
   
   
3. Be persistent. Parent has been working toward saving the land for a year. You may have to contact some people several times. Parent said she sent "about a hundred" e-mails to local TV news stations so they would cover the Trash Bash cleanup event, and 2 news stations did show up.
   
   
4. Circulate information about the project. Parent created a newsletter about the land and took it door to door to tell her neighbors, garnering support for preserving the site.
   
   
5. Take it one step at a time. Instead of looking at all the steps to get to the point where the land is preserved, look at the first step in front of you, and overcome it. Then move to the next step.