Defending Florida's State Parks: A Call to Action to Prevent Proposed Development

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When you think of Florida, what do you think about? I know, I know, a lot of people are like a

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Florida man or like the politics and things like that, but do you ever

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just think about the beauty of Florida? You know, the natural landscapes

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that you see, the Everglades, you know, there's a lot of different parks,

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state parks, national parks, obviously the coast, the Gulf of Mexico coast, the

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Atlantic coast. It is beautiful in Florida when

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you really think about things. And that beauty of some

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of those state parks are in jeopardy. And so I have a call to

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action today for us to come together as

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a community and let's defend these parks.

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So you're going to want to listen to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. We're

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protecting parks, folks. Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,

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how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a better ocean

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by taking action. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about something

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that was actually a listener requested story,

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which to be honest, I love these. When people reach

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out to me, it's like, hey, can you cover this? Can you cover that?

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I'm actually working on another story that somebody's asked me to cover. I

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prioritized this. I actually had another interview that's gonna go

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up on next episode, but people are coming to me with some

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stories that they want me to cover, which I love, by the way. If

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you have more stories, just hit me up on LinkedIn or

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on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean. I'd

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love to help you out with putting that story on a bigger platform, like

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on my platform. and I've

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seen this story about the state parks that are in jeopardy. In

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fact, there are nine state parks in Florida that are in jeopardy from

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basically development proposals that are up, hotels,

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golf courses, things like that. that's really,

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really disappointing to hear, to be honest. So we're going

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to be covering that today because it's

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a call to action. Now, when I was contacted, I want to just kind of

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give a shout out to Courtney Doberton,

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who let me know of this story on LinkedIn. It's

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basically state parks threatened with development. And there are nine state parks

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that are threatened. I'm going to read out the parks if you're familiar with them

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or not. Anastasia State Park, Topsail Hill Preserve

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State Park, Grayton Beach State Park, Jonathan Dickinson

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State Park, Honeymoon Island State Park, Hillsboro River

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State Park, Camp Ellen State Park, and Dr. Von

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D. Mitzell Euless Johnson State Park, and

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Oletta River State Park. Some of these parks are along the

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coastline. A lot of these parks, actually. I know the first two, Anastasia and

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Topsail, are along the coastline. Anastasia's just

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south of Jacksonville on the Atlantic side. Topsail Hill

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Preserve State Park is just actually in the panhandle in

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the northwest side of Florida and

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in the Gulf of Mexico side. I want to tell

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you how important these parks are to not

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only the environment, but to the people in

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Florida and a lot of different people. It doesn't matter the

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political background. Let's keep the politics out of this for this thing.

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Let's think about it from a park standpoint. When parks

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are designated or even are proposed to be designated, there's

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usually a number of reasons to propose that park. Oftentimes,

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usually the quickest way to get a park, you know, essentially designated

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as a park is a cultural moment. So it could be indigenous

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or tribal. It could be something of cultural importance. And

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I know in like lakes and oceans, there's

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like specific shipwrecks or a specific habitat On

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land, it could be the same thing. It could be a piece of river or

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a piece of land that's been very important culturally in the past or

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to people or to history. And those become state parks pretty

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quickly because there's a reason. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, we want to remember that. We want to

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protect from a cultural perspective. then there's also the environmental

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perspective. So, you know, protecting for biodiversity, protecting against

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land development, but also protecting for security. And

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this is one that often gets overlooked

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a lot of times when we think about parks. And this has happened actually, not

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just in Florida, but everywhere. Because when

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you preserve you're really

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anything that happens in nature. So if we have a lot

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of rain, like Florida gets a lot of rain, flooding happens,

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you get hurricanes and things like that, those natural parks become a

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buffer. There's easy drainage because nothing has really

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been paved over. Nothing's been altered because

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you can't alter a state park in the way that it's designated now. And this

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is one of the problems with these new proposals. And so having

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those natural areas do their natural ecosystem

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function, which is really, really important when we talk about economy, when

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we talk about protection of residences around the park and

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areas and communities and regions and counties around

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the parks. These are really, really important. In fact, coming

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up to Canada, just to kind of give me a local perspective, to talk about something

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local, we have the Oak Ridges Moraine, which is just

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north of Toronto, and it's a green area. And essentially, it

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is an area where you cannot build on, you cannot develop.

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And it's a provincial area that is protected. It's the Oak Ridges Marine

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is what they call it. And that sits north of Toronto. And

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what that does is that helps buffer the rest of Toronto's sort

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of flooding and river systems and things like that. It's not a huge

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piece as much as it should be, but it is a piece that

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helps sort of the natural processes happen. So when we got the

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big rains in July and there was a lot of flooding across

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Southern Ontario, Some of those areas actually did better than

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others because they had that natural drainage. You know,

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the rest of Toronto, like downtown Toronto and other parts of Toronto

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where rivers have been historically buried underneath the...

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Basically, it's the... Oh, gosh, I

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forget the... Essentially, the natural drainage. It's essentially like the

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sewer system. Not really the sewer system, but just... I'm blanking

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on the word right now, but it'll come to me. But it's just the stormwater

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drainage. So, it's a stormwater sewer. right? So when water comes down, you

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know, when you pave roads and everything, you have these underground, like,

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like drainage, right? You have these storm drains. And you

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know, if those get blocked, that's when you get flooding. But the idea is to allow the

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water to get through and drain down towards the lake or towards, you

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know, maybe a natural area. A lot of our rivers in

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Toronto were buried, you know, historically, because we wanted

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to put in paved roads and things like that. So they became part

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of our stormwater drainage. But that doesn't

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help a lot of times, because a lot of times, like I mentioned, those drainage areas get

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blocked by leaves, or debris, or plastics, or pollution, or anything like

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that. And you get flooding that occurs. And this year, we had a

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lot of flooding over the last month. And that's been

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a huge problem, where people have to have been rescued in

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parking lots, believe it or not, because the water was up to the top

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of the roof of their cars. It's a scary situation when

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we start to take away our natural areas. So we have these

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areas like Oak Ridge's moraine just north of Toronto. We have state parks

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in Florida to keep those ecosystem functions working

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properly. You know, it's not the best case scenario because we want

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to keep as many natural areas natural and many green spaces green.

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That's why when you always see uh a residence a

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new residence that's being or a new neighborhood that's being built up there has to

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be a certain amount of green area to allow

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natural drainage that's one of the reasons not only for the viewing capabilities and

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just sort of like people like having seen like green areas You

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have to have greenery to allow for that drainage to happen, you

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know, and you have to have stormwater ponds in new neighborhoods because you

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need to have that drainage. You need to manage the water that's

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coming in, especially now in the times that we're at where we're seeing increased

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rain and increased storms. and increase intensity of storms,

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we're going to need that drainage as much as possible. So having these

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types of parks are extremely important. Now

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they're also important for just preserving

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and conserving the... taking like

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a proactive approach in preserving biodiversity,

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preserving the animals that are there, again, that keep the

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ecosystems functioning to help us and

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all that drainage and all that area to keep it natural and that buffering area,

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right? That's what helps all this. If we lose those animals, we

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lose those habitats to development, we start to lose that

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park and we start to lose the essence of the area and it's

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all drainage or it's all paved. You know, everything gets paved over.

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Think about that. Instead of green, you get basically asphalt or

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concrete or interstates and things like that. And yeah,

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it might help traffic a little bit for the time being, but then more people are

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gonna move in, you're gonna get more problems, and then you're gonna get more flooding, and people

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are gonna be more at risk, and you're gonna get, you know, climate change happens more

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and more. You're gonna get less green areas in state parks. That's

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a problem. That's a huge, huge problem. And a lot of

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the times, like I have to admit, Florida has a lot of state parks. And

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they're beautiful. I've heard many people go down and visit

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them, and you see them online talk about how beautiful they

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are, how they love these parks. And I'm not just talking about hippies

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and environmentalists and left-leaning people. These

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are like hunters, fishers. It doesn't matter what political part

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of the spectrum you're on. These are people who enjoy nature. Everybody enjoys

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nature at some point. It'd be very hard-pressed to find anybody

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who doesn't. I'm you

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know, our newly lost friend, Dr. Jane Nichols,

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he used to talk about the slow coast all the time. He created, him and his wife

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created the slow coast. They created a store and just sort of an area where you can just slow

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down, enjoy nature. And I, you know, since his passing, I've

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really thought about that. You know, going away to a cottage a

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couple weeks ago and just putting away your phones and

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just enjoying looking out onto the lakes and

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looking out onto nature and looking out onto the oceans when

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you have it in front of you is probably one of the best things that you

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can do for your mental health. your natural well-being.

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We all know our mental health is suffering these days, right? And

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so we need to protect that. We need to make sure that we are

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in good mental health so we can attack these problems and these

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issues that we're facing and just being present for

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our families and our friends and everybody else and just ourselves. We

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need to have nature to have that. So when I heard that

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there are people out there that want to propose developing

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on these state parks I got angry. I

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got scared. There was a lot of fear. And this is not new.

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We've seen this before. We've seen, I

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believe it was during the Trump presidency, Trump

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was going to allow exploration and mining and

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coal mining in certain state parks or

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federal parks around the US. And

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it was actually a lot of people came out, and there were a lot of Republicans that

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were for that. And we need to get more fossil fuels,

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and we need to reinvest in those and double down on those. And of course, the

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whole climate change debate and everything like that was going on. A

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lot of hunters and fishers started pressuring Republican senators

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to be like, hey, what are you doing? You're a hunter and fisher. Don't

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you want, like, we go to our national parks and our parks to

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hunt and fish and we do it responsibly and we want nature. We love being

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in nature. You know, as much as people don't like hunting and

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don't like fishing, there are people out there who enjoy that and

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and but want to protect like they love being in nature.

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That's one of the things that they love doing. And and

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that's part of the process of hunting and fishing. you're out

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there, you're probably out there longer than you are catching anything or

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hunting anything or killing anything. And the people who do that are

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have been in historically have been very, you

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know, very, how do you say proactive as

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advocates to protecting these these national parks and state

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parks. So I'm curious to see how many fishers

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and hunters will be having a say against this.

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And I just want to talk to you and just let you know about certain

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aspects. And I'm going to talk about the call to action because this

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is really important. You know, this is something that I've wanted to

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do a long time here on how to protect the ocean. I mean, we

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are here talking about how to protect the ocean. This is Monday. This is a new

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week. And we're about to come into a long weekend here in North America. And

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people are like, let's let's party. Let's do this. But we have one thing to do.

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We have to protect these national parks. It doesn't matter if you're from Florida

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or not from Florida, you can participate and there's a public comment

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that's going to happen. Now, the public meetings in

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Florida, like in person, have been postponed for nine

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state parks. They've all been postponed. And so I

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don't know when this is going to be, but I am going to share the link. So

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it's the floridaspringcouncil.org. And it's

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a full page, and it kind of gives you updates of when and where these

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public meetings will be there. But here's what some of the developments are.

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Anastasia State Park, there is a proposed changes

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to include a resort with up to 350 rooms, as

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well as a disc golf course and pickleball courts. Really.

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You know, is that really, really necessary? Top Sale

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Hill Preserve Park, proposed changes to include a

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resort for up to 350 rooms, as well as a disc golf course

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and a pickleball, and pickleball courts. So I'm assuming these are the same, this

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is the same company that's going, and these are two very different areas. One's

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in the Top Sales, and like I said, is in the Panhandle, Florida, and the other one's

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just south of Jacksonville. Grayton Beach Park, a

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proposed change of a disc golf course and pickleball courts.

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Jonathan Dickinson State Park, looking at proposed changes, include

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multiple golf courses, a clubhouse, and related facilities

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encompassing over 1,000 acres. 1,000 acres

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gone from these state parks. Think about what a clubhouse

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would bring, or even the land use changes that happen

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when you put multiple golf courses in. The fertilizers and

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pesticides that are used to maintain those golf courses. How

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the drainage changes when you put in those golf courses. there's

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a lot of difference in there. When you put in a hotel or a resort, a

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350 room resort plus all the amenities, another

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golf course and a pickleball course, which is basically paving over

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natural areas. These are big changes. So

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we have Jonathan Dickinson. I told you what that was.

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There's looking at the Honeymoon Island. They never detailed what was going on. Hillsborough, they

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never detailed. Camp Helen, they never detailed. It

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looks like none of the other ones, they've detailed what is proposed to

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go in there. But these changes are brought by the

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state government, so the governor of that area and

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of Florida. And we know this governor is not a

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person who is for the environment. We know he's

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for big businesses, except for Disney, of course, for different reasons. But

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he's there to, you know, bring in more money and this

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and these are like tourist stuff. You know, these are tourist things

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to happen. Now, a state park is a tourist destination in

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general. It doesn't need to be augmented. It doesn't need to

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be changed. The state park in itself is a

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tourist attraction. You don't need to put a resort. You don't need to put golf

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courses. Like, think about the amount of golf courses in Florida anyway. When people

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go down to Florida, they golf. They golf. They don't need more

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courses. They don't need more golf courses to happen. And we've seen

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so many changes to the natural landscape of Florida

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over the past, you know, 50, 60 years. It's definitely changed

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things. Florida in general is at

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risk of climate change consequences. I've covered stories

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before recently, you know, in the last couple of months where, you

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know, we talked about how the groundwater, the water in the ground is

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so dense, and it's so high, that

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when flooding happens, it happens from the ground up. It

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doesn't happen from the ocean in. It happens from the ground, because it's so saturated,

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that ground, with water, and it could be sometimes ocean water, that

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it's changing that landscape, and it's changing sort of the the

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permeability of that area and sort of the security

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of that area. You're going to see a lot of erosion happen in those areas. And the predictions of

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all the sea level rise models and the IPCC models is

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that half of Florida is going to be gone at some point in time. I don't know

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when, but at some point in time, it could be gone. Now imagine

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a state that's at risk from climate change

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consequences, more intense storms coming, flooding

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and nutrients and water quality issues all around. And

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what helps is natural areas that stay natural. So

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these state parks actually help. And the natural landscape

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actually helped. Changing those landscapes even a little

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bit, because these state parks are not huge. So changing them

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and paving them can have drastic consequences for

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the areas around them. We've already seen some of those changes. When

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Big Sugar decided that they wanted to empty out more and

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they wanted to take out some of the Everglades so that they can put a plant there, and

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then they started to take away and redirect some

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of the water that was coming out of Lake Okeechobee, we saw the

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nutrients increase. We saw what happened to the algal blooms and

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the red tides that eventually came in as well. Just it's

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not good. We're not in a good shape in Florida. And

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Florida can be very beautiful. It could be amazing. But these

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changes will probably have problems for

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water quality down the road. We just don't know how. We just don't know when.

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But having these changes will drastically change the landscapes of

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those state parks. And state parks are there to be state

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parks. They're not there to be a resort. They're not there to be disc

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golf courses. They're not there to be pickleball courts. These

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are there to be natural areas, and people enjoy the natural areas

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by hiking, maybe camping a little bit. There's certain

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areas that are managed differently, and they're there to be enjoyed by everybody,

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including Floridians. So Floridians, we are

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very fortunate to have a lot of people that live in Florida that

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listen to this podcast. And it's great to

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have that as a community. It's time to

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look at these areas. Pay attention to when those public comments. If

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you're in those areas, go to those public meetings. Be a voice for those

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state parks. There are a lot of people within the state government

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that work on these state parks that are there that will help you. you know, that

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will there that are there to be like, hey, we don't want these changes either. I know

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public sector people, they do not want to see these changes, the people, the

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Rangers, the people who work for it to protect those parks and those boundaries.

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They are there to protect land, they are there to protect the environment. So they

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will have your back. At some point, we just need to hear from the

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people from Floridians. And if you're outside Florida, like I am, not

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even in the country, I'm going to send, you know, some some emails,

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you know, maybe some phone calls to the governor's office. You know, there's a

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lot of there are a lot of people on TikTok

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and online that are doing some great things. I'm gonna give them just

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some shout outs here, because I want you guys to

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be able to know who they are, because I think it's really

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important. Carissa Cabrera, who is on

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TikTok, she is a great person out of Hawaii. She's a great

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psycom person and conservationist. She's great. There's also,

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I'm just looking up this person here, um it's

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it's at whales we i think her name is erica i

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don't know her very well but she's been doing uh erica yeah

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e-r-i-k-a and she goes by whales we so

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whales all one word whales and then w-e-e check that out

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i'll put the link into the show notes to both of those accounts and to some

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of those posts that they've been putting in. They're putting in updates to

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what's happening. I'll put in some TikToks and some social media posts as

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well just on what I know, but a lot of the information I get are

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for people like them who are helping me out and people like

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Courtney Dobberton who are helping me out and gathering information. you

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know look them up thank them for the work that they do and and uh you

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know a call to action is go to the website that's in

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the show notes it's uh it's floridaspringcouncil.org all

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one word floridasprings with an s council.org but

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check out the link in the show notes to get i have the actual

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page to find out when those meetings are it's very important that

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we participate in those. It's very important that we protect these state parks. So

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that's it for today's episode. Love to hear what you think. You can leave a

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comment on Spotify because

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we have videos up there as well. You can go to YouTube. You can leave a comment

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there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these state parks. You

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can also go to any of your favorite podcasts

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and listen to them there, but you can hit me up on Instagram at

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HowToProtectTheOcean. I'd love to hear your thoughts on

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this and stay tuned for the next episode. We have a cool book

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coming at you. If you have questions on the ocean and on the atmosphere, there's

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a book that's coming out that's right down your alley that answers probably the

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questions that you have. It's gonna be a lot of fun. So check

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that out subscribe, you know Follow whatever you need

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to do to find out more information and make that call to action to

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help these state parks Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the how to

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protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin Have a great day. We'll talk to