1-3
Environmental Resolutions for the New Year
In the spirit of starting fresh for the new year . . . . This page on the City of Fremont, Calif., Web site offers just 2 suggestions that everyone can do to help the environment: plan home maintenance projects to protect water quality, and reduce solid waste. Tips for doing these things are included.

1-10
John Moran's Photo Diary . . . .
John Moran's new book Journal Of Light: The Visual Diary Of A Florida Nature Photographer is out. A former Gainesville Sun staff photographer, Moran has captured Florida scenics and wildlife images for about a quarter-century. His Web site isn't quite fleshed out yet (bookmark it and check back later), but you will find several pages of his striking images at Harold's Fine Frames. Whether you enjoy photos of flowers, clouds, alligators or rivers, Moran has seemed to capture the best of Florida's natural beauty.

1-17
Federal Manatee Protection Areas Map
This is a good time to see manatees as they move inland up Florida's rivers to get away from the cold water of the ocean. Large numbers of manatees are usually in the springs of Kings Bay in Crystal River. This page shows other federal manatee sanctuaries and refuges. You can view maps in PDF or regular (HTML) format. Note these areas are usually off-limits to people during manatee season -- just stay outside the designated boundary lines.

1-24
Florida's Fascinating Turtles
If you're a fan of our shelled reptiles, this article will interest you. From cooters and musk turtles to snapping turtles and even gopher tortoises, this page offers photos and interesting tidbits about the species as well as the habitats they live in. There are also tips on looking for turtles for wildlife watching. See the state's page on freshwater turtles for more information.

1-31
12 Tips for Ecotravelers
This MSNBC Travel article is for any ecology-minded traveler, Florida or elsewhere. Most of the 12 straightforward tips are common-sense guidelines that any natural area would have visitors follow, such as to leave plants and wildlife alone. (These are protected in most natural areas, like state parks.) Other tips are more big-picture, such as selecting your destination carefully and buying alternative-energy certificates. See EcoFlorida's special Web section on Florida nature travel.

2-7
Great Backyard Bird Count
It's almost time again for the Great Backyard Bird Count, a Cornell/Audubon event that takes place Feb. 18-21 across North America. Anyone can participate -- all you have to do is identify and count the species of birds you see in a specific place over the weekend. Find out more at the site, which shows tallies from previous years, offers a birding checklist for every state and ID tips, and tracks trends discovered from bird counts like the GBBC.

2-14
Earthwatch Radio
The Internet has made information more accessible than ever -- not just facts to look up, but to listen to as well. This University of Wisconsin Web site offers environment shorts you can listen to in a new format called podcasting. This allows you to download the audio file in an MP3 format and play it on an MP3 player (such as an iPod, from where podcasting gets its name) anywhere you want. You can also listen to the audio file while looking at the Web site, or read the script of the audio file if you can't or don't want to listen. There used to be a similar online radio program just for Florida at www.floridaenvironment.com, but the site hasn't been updated in a year and a half. Radio for Peace International in Miami broadcasts Earthwatch Radio over the airwaves.

2-22
Disney to Test Outdoors Adventure Tours
In Florida, most residents are used to the effect Walt Disney World and other major theme parks have on tourism and the state's economy. We frequently see Disney ads and merchandise, and many residents have visited theme parks more than once. But as EcoFloridians, we may be a little surprised to learn that Disney is testing a plan to offer guided "outdoors adventure" tours in Wyoming and Hawaii, according to this article. If this summer's tours are successful, then Disney may expand to other states. The director of Fermata (a previous Hot Link), an ecotourism consulting firm, indicates in the article that the idea of real-world tours is interesting for a company that relies on "fabricated reality."

2-28
Wakulla Springs: A Giant Among Us
The Florida's Springs Web site has already been a hot link, but the state has just recently added an interactive feature on Wakulla Springs. Wakulla Springs has been closed to recreational diving, but now you can take a virtual tour of the cavern leading from the huge spring bowl online, viewing underwater images of divers locating mastodon bones and squeezing through tunnels underground. The site also offers articles on the problems facing the spring and its watershed, and what's being done about those problems. The interactivity is nicely done and makes the site fun. If you haven't been to Wakulla Springs State Park, try to plan a visit to take a boat tour and hike the trails.

3-7
The Greatest Good: A Forest Service Centennial Film
The U.S. Forest Service is 100 years old, and a film about the century of American forests premiered in January. At this site, you can watch a trailer of the film (why do people call it a trailer when it usually is shown before the film? Something that trails would seem to come afterward.) and even order your own 3-DVD set for $18. Book and music soundtracks are also for sale. The chance to buy them is a good thing because, unfortunately, the only place in Florida the Web site shows as screening the film is the University of Florida in Gainesville.

3-14
Identification of Florida’s Seagrasses
This site might be worth bookmarking if you are interested in seagrass. There are no bells or whistles here, but simply descriptions and links to drawings of seagrass varieties. See where seagrass is monitored in southern Florida.

3-21
Florida Highway Photos
If you’re hitting the road as so many people are around this time of year for a spring break, this site might come in handy. Here, hundreds of images of the Florida roadsides show what you might expect as you travel, including signs to the entrances of state parks. For those who are visually oriented -- or those who want to know what landmarks to look for -- this could really come into use. If you visit Florida RV Road Map Guides toward the bottom of the page, you’ll find almost mile-by-mile tips and photos of other roads around Florida: U.S. 301, the Florida Turnpike, State Road 40, and more. Find more Florida roadway info at the Florida Department of Transportation Web site.

4-4
Seeing Is Believing! Visiting the Everglades!
Before it gets too hot and humid, visit the Everglades if you haven’t already this dry season. (I go to Everglades National Park at least once a year and visit outside the park as well.) This page on the site for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) -- a previous Hot Link -- has some pretty well detailed information about visiting the park, from entry fees to staying overnight and what to do and see there. The interactive Flash movie is fun and features a Florida panther.

4-18
Earth Day Network
Earth Day is Friday, April 22 -- the 35th year of the day of reflection about our environment. This site offers news updates, an online quiz measuring your use of the Earth’s resources, and an astounding 17 pages of Earth Day events taking place in Florida. There are also a teacher’s corner and message board for this general jumping-off-point site.

4-25
Global Warming: Florida
By now, we’ve all heard the forecast: portions of our state could end up under water as Earth’s temperature rises. This page on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Web site is all about the effects of climate change on the state of Florida. There are links to PDF studies, maps and the like that tend to be dry but are a good source of information on the subject. To see if you live in a place that could end up under water, try the maps. For details on other effects of global warming on Florida’s environment, see this page. The file on global warming’s effects on wildlife has a page listing things we can do now. Find more Florida climate change effects.

5-9
Trail Mix, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park
This Flash movie is a short trek through Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. Images of the park are displayed while a narrator tells the story of a trip there to walk through the water and talk with a ranger about threats to the park’s environment. One of the amazing things revealed in the movie is that there are 480 species of plants in the park, a quarter of which are endangered. This movie is on the GreenTreks Network Web site, which creates documentaries and other media about the environment.

5-16
Exploring Florida Environment Virtual Reality Movies
Here is an interesting and exciting find! This page offers panoramic views of several natural areas across the state, from Big Cypress in southern Florida to Santa Rosa Island in the panhandle. If your computer has Quicktime or another program that lets you view movies, you can see these 360-degree shots of nature on this University of South Florida Web site. Select a small or large file based on your computer capacity and Internet connection speed.

5-23
Dragonflies and Damselflies of Florida
This is a great time to spot various dragonflies zooming through the air and perching on car antennae, and this page lists the Odonata species found in Florida. Click on the icon next to each name for an image of the species, basic facts about its life cycle and habitat, and a map showing where each is found. Because this page on the OdonataCentral Web site is actually part of the University of Texas Web site, the maps may show the Texas area. Follow the link to the Dragonfly Society of the Americas.

5-30
Lick Global Warming
For a holiday weekend, here's something short and sweet. This fun site featuring Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Dave Matthews Band provides things we can all do to "lick" global warming -- on personal, local and national levels. Check out the interactive guide to global warming. Find an unrelated global warming FAQ.

6-6
Turtle Nesting Season
Florida is one of the United States' sea turtle nesting hotspots, and the nesting season is well underway. This page on the Tampa section of the About.com Web site highlights turtle nesting activities, the species that nest in Florida and the threats sea turtles face. Most of Florida's sea turtles are listed as endangered on the federal Endangered Species List. Contact your nearest coastal park to find out if it is offering sea turtle walks this summer. Find a variety of sea turtle links at the Florida state Marine Turtle Protection Program page.

6-13
Environmental Kids Club
School is out for the summer, and kids (ahem, parents) are looking for things to do. If you have a child -- or access to one -- or you are a teacher, you might want to bookmark this site by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Here, you’ll find environment-related games, art projects (including pages to print out and color), a comic book about ozone, environment-related science experiments to try, and more. Find the Florida environment site for kids hosted by Big Al the alligator.

6-20
Where You Live: Search Your Community
Last week’s hot link was an EPA site, and here’s another -- nice and quick. This page lets you input your zip code to find environmental hazards near your home. Have any toxic releases been reported in your area? Which locations collect hazardous waste (including dry-cleaning facilities)? What factors are impacting your watershed? (I found mine, Everglades.) What is the UV Index for your area? You can find answers to these questions, and even make a map showing environmental facts of your location, at this site.

6-27
One-Tank Adventures in Florida State Parks
The state park service Web site now has a nice feature that lets you select a city (presumably near where you live) to see the closest state parks. The state park site did have a way to see parks near large cities and major towns, but this feature with the additional cities is even more detailed. The idea is you’ll find a getaway close to home and not have to burn a lot of gas.

7-11
Where Have All the Rangers Gone?
This is an Orlando Sentinel article about how national park rangers aren’t interacting with the public as much anymore. The article doesn’t focus on Florida specifically, but I think I once beefed on this list about a bad experience at one of the recreation areas in Ocala National Forest for the same reason: the recreation area had been taken over by a private company whose workers acted mainly as security guards, not helpful information or advice givers. Fortunately, volunteers step in at some federal lands to fill the interpretive roles rangers usually offer. Still, in many places, nothing can take the place of a ranger.

7-18
A Challenge to Conservationists
One of the major debates about ecotourism/nature travel -- if not the major debate -- is how to preserve and protect a place while opening it up to visitors. Another conservation question -- about protecting natural habitats while not taking advantage of the people who live there -- is on this page (the November/December 2004 content page on the World Watch Magazine site). Here, there are PDF documents to download. Some like the one discussing conservation are free, and other PDF documents are for sale for $4 each. Each issue appears to offer some environment-related articles for free and some for sale. Click here for 2005 issues. Reader responses to the conservation article referenced above are here.

7-25
Coral Reef Conservation Program
This sub-site of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is all about protecting coral reefs. There is a lot of information here, from which species call coral reefs home to medicines that have been developed from the reefs to how the coral reef contributes to the U.S. economy. There is a handy list of practical ways to protect coral reefs at http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/outreach/thingsyoucando.html. To stay up to date on coral reef news from NOAA, you can download a PDF newsletter and/or subscribe to get news updates via e-mail. Click here for maps showing coral reefs around Florida.

8-1
Great American Backyard Campout
Aug. 20 marks the Great American Backyard Campout, which is a way to introduce family members and friends to camping without having to go out into the wilds. This site sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation has some clever features, like offering you the chance to give your backyard campsite a name and sign up for GABC updates. Once you sign up (there are already more than 11,000 campers), you get a handy list of gear, recipes, nighttime photography tips and more. You can also choose to purchase a Family Campout Kit, which includes a backpack and "family fun kit." The backyard campout idea isn’t just good for families, though -- I could see a group of girlfriends doing this, or a group of fun-loving couples.

9-12
Peaceful Traveler
This is a newish Web site, so you might want to bookmark it and come back later as it develops. Check out the article "Jeff Greenwald's 13 steps for how to be an Ethical Traveler" from the home page, plus the archived CNN article "See the World, Protect the Earth."

9-19
Florida State Parks Online Tours
The Florida State Parks Web site is doing a better and better job of providing information about visiting the parks. This news release announces "online tours" of select parks. At the page for Caladesi Island State Park, for example, you can spend a minute to download the special viewer that scans 4 distinct areas of the park in a 360-degree video: the beach, marina, picnic area and a trail. This is fun and may help answer some questions people have -- after all, a picture is worth a thousand words -- but will it entice more people to visit?

9-26
TravelPod: The Web’s Original Travel Blog
TravelPod is a great resource for travelers, especially those who are on an extensive trip for fun. Whether you’re traveling around the world and want to map your destinations and tell the folks back home what it was like, or you want to reminisce about a previous weekend getaway, this free site is a nice place to log your adventures and post your trip photos. The other bonus about the site is that you can read others’ reports before a visit somewhere so you can prepare for your own trip in advance. In fact, if you have an RSS reader or other tool to subscribe to Web feeds, you can get the latest posts from around the world!

10-3
Carl Hiaasen’s book Flush inspires "favorite place" contest
Carl Hiaasen has another conservation-minded book out for kids. (The previous one was "Hoot," about burrowing owls, which led to a movie being filmed where I live set to come out next year.) "Flush" is about dumping raw sewage in the ocean in the Keys. This week’s Hot Link is a page about a contest in which children write about their favorite place for a chance to win a trip to Florida and as a way to donate money for land conservation. This page also indicates where Hiaasen will be appearing at book stores around the country (also in Tavernier, Vero Beach and Coral Gables). Whether or not you forward this page to your favorite child, it can still prompt you to ask yourself: What is your favorite place, and why?

10-10
Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, most endangered refuges 2005
You may have heard the news last week that the national group Defenders of Wildlife came out with its annual list of the most endangered refuges in the country. One in Florida made the list this year: Florida Panther NWR, which is east of Naples. Mostly off-limits to visitors except for a short nature trail area that was opened just a few months ago, this refuge is important to panthers, whose land is being taken over by development and agriculture. Find out more at this page, which includes a report on all the endangered refuges around the nation.

10-17
Discovery of coral reefs off Collier shores sparks debate
This news article from the Naples Daily News reveals the discovery of a reef off northern Collier County and discusses how making the location public could bring about the reef’s downfall. As one official said, "People tend to love this stuff to death." Discovered when the county hired a company to survey the marine life in order to add sand to the beach, the reef may not be the only one in the area. Is there a way to allow people to visit reefs without damaging them? Registration is required to access this article online.

10-24
WhatBird
WhatBird helps you identify birds you have seen step by step. The site claims to have 820 bird species in its database. Many of you are probably expert bird-watchers -- but every once in a while, you might get stumped, and this site could come in handy. Especially when hurricanes are headed our way, we might get to see birds from other regions, carried over on the winds. (That is, if you can take time from post-hurricane cleanup to look for birds!) There are different ways to find the bird you want to identify, which is great because each person may pick up different elements of a bird’s appearance or location. You can also use the site to make your own bird field guide and get bird alerts when rare birds show up in your area.

10-31
Wilma killed many Everglades birds
Here is an article from the Palm Beach Post that reports thousands of birds have died in the southwestern Everglades because of Hurricane Wilma. The story is told from the perspective of a man who lives in the area who volunteered to help find bodies in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit; now, he’s finding the bodies of birds in his own neighborhood. Most of the birds are water birds you typically see there -- ibises, pelicans, herons and egrets. It’s a shame, too, because October is the peak of migration for many other birds that head south for the winter.

11-7
Bird watching in Lake County, Florida
Every county should do something like this -- some already do, of course. On the official county Web site for Lake County, you can get a checklist of birds found there and a map of locations that are great for birding along with details of each place. There is also a page dedicated to just Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area, one of the prime bird-watching sites in the area.

11-14
Photos of Everglades National Park after Hurricane Wilma
This click-by-click slideshow of 5 images shows some of the damage Everglades National Park experienced after Hurricane Wilma: a missing chickee, a demolished building, a dock torn, a campsite blown away, a tram pushed into a building. If you are planning to visit a southern Florida natural area, call ahead to verify an area is open and you can do what you planned to do.

11-21
Finding Longleaf Pine Forests in Florida
The holidays are coming, Christmas trees are already for sale in some places, and that brings pines and their fresh scent to mind. Is there a longleaf pine forest in your county? You can find out quickly by visiting this site, where a map of Florida shows the location of longleaf pine forests. This Longleaf Alliance site has other nice features: see history through the rings of a longleaf pine through the "Memoirs of a Forest" link. Find plants associated with longleaf pine plant communities by searching the photo database. Download a screensaver or computer wallpaper. Or click on "Virtual Tour" for a slideshow of longleaf pines.

11-28
Whooping Cranes - FWRI
Whooping cranes are on their way to winter homes, including the experimental migratory flock that scientists have been trying to establish at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge near Crystal River. (Florida has both migratory and non-migratory flocks, both of which are experimental flocks.) This Florida Wildlife Research Institute page offers articles and photos of whooping cranes in Florida. The photo gallery includes photos of whooping cranes flying and also a crane chick. As for the articles, get a FAQ on the endangered birds, information on reporting whooping crane sightings, and more. Check out an EcoFlorida whooping crane article in the archives.

12-5
Mallory Swamp: Rising from the Ashes
This is a new brochure about Mallory Swamp online available as a PDF document. Mallory Swamp, in the rural Big Bend region of Florida north of the Suwannee River, once experienced such a bad fire (around 60,000 acres were burned in 2001) that it has been called Florida’s worst wildfire. This colorful brochure highlights the effects of that fire and what is now being done to restore the swamp and its water flow. 30,000 acres of Mallory Swamp were purchased for conservation with the help of M.C. Davis, whom EcoFlorida profiled in the spring 2003 issue.

12-12
Nature Deficit
In the fall issue of EcoFlorida, I briefly mentioned a study that shows children with attention deficit disorders benefit from spending time outside. This article in Orion magazine details that study and how there is a real nature deficit in people’s lives today. It really makes a case for saving green space -- and for making sure we get our recommended daily allowance of fresh air and sunshine, even if we don’t suffer from attention deficit disorders. Now all of us who know that spending time in nature has made us feel better somehow have proof to point to.