Florida Scrub
JB: This is Earth and Sky. Compared to most of the state of Florida, the ground in central Florida is very dry.
DB: And, in one of the world’s most rapidly growing population centers, you need dry ground to build suburbs, shopping centers, golf courses and Florida citrus groves. So why leave wild places in central Florida?
John Fitzpatrick: There’s no system that I’ve ever known in the world that is more perfect to ask that question than the Florida scrub . . .
JB: Dr. John Fitzpatrick has been doing research in central Florida for 30 years. He said the Florida “scrub” region is a hot, dry, stunted, elfin forest. It preserves the water table that feeds the aquifer that supplies fresh water to the coast. And it’s home to hundreds of animal species. The scrub habitat is adapted to frequent fires started by lightning. Conservationists want to preserve the land, partly with controlled burns to mimic the natural fire cycle.
John Fitzpatrick: The scrub is a perfect example of the idea that we humans need to come to grips with, and that is . . . We have a planet here in which we simply have a choice – we can live side by side with all of the Earth’s 3 billion-year creation, or we can destroy that little by little.
DB: Thanks today to the Bureau of Land Management and to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.
The following individual was interviewed for today’s show. Our thanks to:
John Fitzpatrick
Director of Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
Cornell University
Author’s Notes:
The scrub regenerates fast. Most of the biomass of the plants – such as the trunks of the trees -is underground.
Forty species of scrub life – so far – are on the endangered species list.
23.40: From the standpoint of their ecological health, these communities in particular, which are extremely fire-prone communities, require fire just as much as they require water.
20.44: And this discovery, over the past couple of decades, of the enormous importance of wildfire within many habitats of the world has revolutionized both understandings in ecology and also understandings about conservation. Smokey the Bear is gone. Dead. He was wrong.
28.45: We won’t save it all and as I like to point out in the case of the scrub in Florida: the pizza is gone. We’re talking right now about saving enough of the crumbs on the plate so that the original entity can still be enjoyed and preserved.
30.10: But much more important in my mind, the scrub is a perfect example of the idea that we humans need to come to grips with, and that is: we have a planet here in which we simply have a choice. We can live side by side with all of the Earth’s 3 billion-year creation, or we can destroy that little by little. And my view is that it is by far as much a moral issue as a practical or economic one
30.56: The pure moral reason is best understood by walking out in the middle of a Florida scrub and having pointed out to you, in all its elfin splendor, the hundreds and hundreds of species, and the billion years of evolutionary history that each one of those things represents, and how they now interact, and realizing that it far more complex and beautiful than the Mona Lisa. We want to save the Mona Lisa and all the other paintings in the Louvre because of what they tell us about our own past and about human nature. By the same token, we ought to want to save all the beautiful intricate details of biological live that we’re living side by side with, because of what they tell us and what we haven’t even begun to learn from them yet. So we have as much a moral responsibility as anything … – and an opportunity – to save these things … all we need to do is decide that we want to do that.
32.57: In my view, the fundamental argument is: do you want to live side by side with some of the most amazing creatures that have ever evolved in the Earth? Or do you want to just get rid of them? Why don’t we live side-by-side with them?…we do have after all, some moral responsibility not to just destroy them just because it was convenient for us
although neither makes much sense to me..
Additional Teacher Resources
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Saving Our Scrub; A Newsletter Dedicated to Sharing Information about the Florida Scrub Ecosystem
This site provides the inaugural edition of Saving Our Scrub, a newsletter dedicated to the sharing of information about Florida scrub habitat. This edition explores federal threatened and endangered species in the scrub land, research on scrub plants, and recovery efforts of the Florida scrub jay.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Saving Our Scrub; A Newsletter Dedicated to Sharing Information about the Florida Scrub Ecosystem
A continuation of the scrub land newsletter, updated in May of 2002.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service: Saving Our Scrub; A Newsletter Dedicated to Sharing Information about the Florida Scrub Ecosystem
A continuation of the scrub land newsletter, updated in May of 2004.
Florida Department of Environmental Protection: The Role of Wildland Fire
This article discusses the critical role that fire plays in maintaining many of the earth’s ecosystems. Because more lightning strikes occur per square mile in Florida than any other place in North America, fire is one of the primary natural forces under which Florida’s land ecosystems have developed. Thus it is critical to understand the role natural as well as prescribed burns play in the management of the Florida scrub lands.
