We live in one of the emptier parts of the state, as far as human population goes. You drive for miles and miles between towns seeing nothing but forests and salt marshes, crossing over wild looking rivers and swamps. Some people prefer to keep driving, to stay on the paved roads we built to take us past these places. But others amongst us are drawn in. You can leave the paved world and possibly be the only person for miles. And yet you are surrounded by more life than is apparent from your car window.
Our EcoAdventures explore the surprising number of activities one can enjoy in the wild places in our area. We have paddled and snorkeled in St. Joseph Bay. We have hiked in the Cathedral of Palms, and along the Sopchoppy River. We have tracked red wolves on St. Vincent Island. And there is a lot more to come.
You can keep checking this blog for new EcoAdventures, after they air on our dimensions program (and we’ll have program listings for that on this page as well). So far we’ve teamed with nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and small business owners who are all dedicated to the conservation and appreciation of the wildness that surounds us. But we’re also interested in hearing from individuals. What are you doing in unpaved Florida? What should we be experiencing?
Please share your story with us! Add a comment
Browse past EcoAdventures here.
Or, you can just watch the videos:
The Wakulla Ecotourism Institute has a program to certify qualified nature guides called “Green Guides.” On October 1, 2011, my musical group Hot Tamale is putting on a special show at Posh Java in Sopchoppy that will honor the green guides with the release of a new song called “Wakulla Green.” The show will be titled “A Sopchoppy Home Companion” in emulation of the famous Garrison Keillor radio program. CDs of the song will be distributed to raise funds for the Green Guides Scholarship fund. More info is available either at Posh Java or at Tallahassee Community College’s Wakulla Center in Crawfordville.
Thanks, Craig! We definitely want to hear from eco-groups in the area. What do you do? What area do you cover? The Green Guides have a mission that’s close to my heart, which is not only guiding people in nature, but doing so that they leave the smallest possible impact. I hope to address that in our ecotourism posts.
For our first segment, we’ll be covering the Forgotten Coast segment of the Florida Circumnavigational Trail. Here’s a little more info on that:
https://blog.wfsu.org/blog-coastal-health/?p=2896
Rob, we are a local non-profit dedicated to the conservation of remote, roadless wildlands. We are utilizing documentary exploration and experiential outdoor learning as tools to facilitate deeper relations between people and wildlands. Our flagship endeavor, Project Remote, involves calculating the remotest location of each state then going to that ‘Remote Spot’ to generate new baseline knowledge about ecological and physical conditions. We have already traveled to Florida’s remotest mainland location. In order to help connect people to wildlands and experience remoteness locally, we will be leading an off-trail bushwhacking hike into the remotest location of the Florida Big Bend (in Bradwell Bay Wilderness Area), tentatively planned for March 31st.
Thanks for the message, Rebecca. What a great idea, to find the most remote spot in a state or area. Let me know if you end up moving that date, I might want to tag along and get some video, if you’re interested. As it stands, WFSU is shipping me out to Sarasota for a production at the Ringling Museum. “off-trail” and “bushwhacking” sound like “good video” to me!
Rob, sorry we didn’t see this response until just now. We did not end up doing that trip in March so that opportunity, or another, similar one, is still open…perhaps in the fall as we are headed out in June to document the most remote locations of the 7 northeastern states. Send me an email anytime!