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Natural Awakenings Naples and Fort Myers

Environmentally Speaking

Environmentally speaking is intended to alert, inform and educate residents of Collier and Lee counties about educational events and threats that challenge our unique and delicate Southwest Florida ecosystem.


JUNE 9 – SWFL RESET Center Zoom Conversation from 3 to 4 p.m. with FGCU Professor of Agriculture Alex Makesh, who teaches permaculture, and Marco Acosta, FGCU Food Forest manager. Subjects explored will include explanations of urban food forests, permaculture principles and the differences between community gardens and food forests, as well as others. Register at Zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcoc--tqjMoGdUQ9GXFsPWJGN9SqMw5teEJ.


June 12 – Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) Virtual Conference: The Push for a Price on Carbon from 1 to 5 p.m. explores the broad impacts of a carbon fee and dividend across the environment, economy and health. Register at CCLUSA.org/June. More information on CCL available at CitizensClimateLobby.org/carbon-pricing-studies.


June 26 – SWFL Congress of Women, in partnership with FGCU, is showing a film from 4 to 5 p.m. on its Facebook page regarding FGCU’s artificial reef, a research platform in the Gulf of Mexico providing data to study water quality, sustainability, ecosystems and human health. Direct questions to [email protected]Facebook.com/Southwest-Florida-Congress-of-Women-103045924977129.


July 3 – SWFL RESET Center is hosting an in-person presentation at 2 p.m. in the sanctuary of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Ft. Myers, 13411 Shire Lane, on the Right to Clean Water/Rights of Nature (RON) movement in Florida. Speakers include Rights of Nature activists Gary Robbins and Karl Deigert. Joseph Bonasia, of the Florida Rights of Nature Network (FRONN), will discuss current efforts to amend the Florida state constitution granting legally recognized rights to Florida’s waterways and the right to clean water to Floridians. Discussions also include the first RON enforcement case in the nation’s history occurring now in Orange County. Seating limited due to social distancing. Register at SWFLReset.org.


July 3 – Join the South Florida Clean Water Movement and river champion and activist John Heim from 3 to 6 p.m. on the Matanzas Bridge, 511 San Carlos Blvd., Ft Myers Beach, to protest the dumping of polluted Lake Okeechobee waters on the Florida’s west coast via the Caloosahatchee River. Visit Facebook.com/groups/1219673084780861.


Write legislators about SB 1522/HB 1225 

A major blue-green algae bloom threatening public health, property values and local economies has formed on Lake Okeechobee and other areas. Calusa Waterkeeper advises that the current bill language of Governor DeSantis’ Blue-Green Algae Task Force Recommendations Act-SB 1522/HB 1225 is missing task force key recommendations, making it imperative for SWFL citizens to call or write legislators ASAP. Ask legislators to include a provision supporting verification of agricultural best management practices (BMP) and to recommend that FDEP adopt EPA guidelines for blue-green algae toxins as Florida’s new water quality standards. Without these provisions, pollutant loads entering state waters from agricultural operations cannot be quantified or accounted for, and the toxins as new state standards, environmental restoration and public health notifications of blue-green algae blooms cannot be enforced.