Many of these books are available at Maya Books and Music in Sanford FL
Paving Paradise:Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss by Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite
Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite obviously appreciate the irony in the lies they have been told to all of us about the destruction of Florida's wetlands while they were documenting the truth about the decades of reckless bulldozing that has brought us to the place where we are now. That sense of humor makes it possible to read their exhaustive account of the corrupt ways developers and the politicians they have bought and paid for repeatedly circumvented laws and regulations to destroy irreplaceable natural resources in order to bring in huge profits quickly.
Every Floridian and those who want to help protect Florida's wetlands needs to read this book to understand what has happened and is still happening to the wild places and to our rapidly vanishing water supply
Paving Paradise is a compelling cautionary tale of how Florida's greed has permeated the whole history of the state's development. In the name of progress and at the behest of those who could pay their way around laws that were written (often too late) to stop the widespread destruction that has paved over the paradise that originally drew people to the state. Florida, despite clear federal and state policy calling for no net loss of wetlands is being destroyed one condo, shopping center, house and big box store at a time. Pittman and Waite draw us through the steps that brought us to this point and help us to understand why the rape of the state has continued unabated for so long.
The authors, a pair of much-honored St. Petersburg Times reporters, have researched the book thoroughly, and written it in such a way that we want to learn more about the "topsy-turvy world where a minus can equal a plus, dry land masquerades as wet, and supposedly scientific test results don't count if they yield an undesirable answer."
$27 University Press of Florida.
Mirage by Cynthia Barnett
Cynthia Barnett is a journalist with a passion for the environment.
A native Floridian, she has seen the changes that those of us who have spent our lives here have watched come too quickly. Once a tangle of marsh and woods, dotted with urban outcroppings, Florida has become a vast jigsaw puzzle of urban and suburban sprawl.
Water, once considered too plentiful, is becoming a scarce commodity here...the focus of battles that pit county against county and state against state.
To those not yet on the battlefield, Mirage sheds light on the problems we are creating by our lack of foresight. To those leading the charge, it is a guidebook filled with data to show both the damage we have already caused and that which we will continue to cause if changes to the way we use water aren't made soon.
A very thoughtful, well-written book, Mirage delves into the science, history and politics of water in Florida in an interesting and readable manner. This is not a science text. It's a page-turning read, full of facts and figures from which everyone can benefit.
Barnett simply indentifies the problems and gives us solutions we can all implement as individuals. It is also a guide to nudging those in power to help us do what should be done. Mirage is also a call to action, urging each of us to make the changes needed to save Florida for future generations.
An Everglades Providence by Jack E. Davis
The Everglades were once seen as nothing more than a mosquito-infested swamp that covered the southern tip of Florida. No one did more to transform that image than Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Through her words and her works, the swamp was changed into a beloved and protected wetland.
With An Everglades Providence, University of Florida professor Jack E. Davis has brought Douglas to life anew in ways most of us have never known her. Most know little about her or know bits and pieces of her life. Davis’ thorough research and spell-binding writing style weave a tapestry of her life that brings new understanding to the work she did to save and preserve the Everglades.
In the 1960s and beyond, Douglas and her book about south Florida history and ecology: The Everglades: River of Grass had become synonymous with Everglades protection. She was a strong-willed indefatigable crusader even as she neared her own centennial. Davis describes her battles that won her the admiration of environmentalists and the wrath of those who would have drained the wetlands in the name of progress. But, more than that, Davis delves into the life of this suffragist, social activist and writer to take us down the path that led her to the fight,
Davis follows the path of the Everglades from a swamp that was seen as the bane of Florida’s desire for growth and wealth to the beloved landmark that was, in some waysm the birthplace of the country’s move toward greater environmental responsibility.
With expertly crafted imagery and impeccable research into all aspects of her life, Davis weaves the story of Douglas’ 108 year life into that of the ancient river of grass to which she devoted much of the second half of the Twentieth Century.
An Everglades Providence is a 616-page book, but the words fly by easily. One gains an understanding of not only Douglas, but of the times and events that shaped her battle to save the Everglades and push others to appreciate the environment.
Jack E. Davis is an associate professor of history at the University of Florida. He is editor of The Wide Brim: Early Poems and Ponderings of Marjory Stoneman Douglas and co-editor of Paradise Lost? The Environmental History of Florida.
Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite obviously appreciate the irony in the lies they have been told to all of us about the destruction of Florida's wetlands while they were documenting the truth about the decades of reckless bulldozing that has brought us to the place where we are now. That sense of humor makes it possible to read their exhaustive account of the corrupt ways developers and the politicians they have bought and paid for repeatedly circumvented laws and regulations to destroy irreplaceable natural resources in order to bring in huge profits quickly.
Cynthia Barnett is a journalist with a passion for the environment.
The Everglades were once seen as nothing more than a mosquito-infested swamp that covered the southern tip of Florida. No one did more to transform that image than Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Through her words and her works, the swamp was changed into a beloved and protected wetland.