Download or read book Florida sVanishing Trail written by James Hammond (Businessman) and published by Florida's Vanishing Trail. This book was released on 2008 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Vanishing Florida written by David T. Warner and published by River City Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For most people, Florida means palm trees, beaches, and Mickey Mouse. But there's anoth- er, more timeless, Florida, of places like Crescent City and the St. Johns River, where Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's books Cross Creek and The Yearling come alive; of places like Eatonville, where Zora Neale Hurston lived, and St. Petersburg, where Jack Kerouac died; of places like Cassadaga, where you can have your fortune told, and Tallahassee, where the presidency and our nation's fortunes were twice decided. This is David Warner's Florida. Vanishing Florida."--Page 4 of cover.
Download or read book Paving Paradise written by Craig Pittman and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is happening to Florida's "protected" wetlands? "This is an exhaustive, timely, and devastating account of the destruction of Florida's wetlands, and the disgraceful collusion of government at all levels. It's an important book that should be read by every voter, every taxpayer, every parent, every Floridian who cares about saving what's left of this precious place."--Carl Hiaasen "Pittman and Waite pulled the lid off federal and state wetlands regulation in Florida and peered deep into the cauldron of 'mitigation,' 'no net loss,' 'banking,' and the rest of the regulatory stew. For anyone interested in wetlands generally, and in Florida environmental issues in particular, this is an eye-opening, must-read book."--J. B. Ruhl Since 1990, every president has pledged to protect wetlands, and Florida possesses more than any state except Alaska. And yet, since that time Florida has lost more than 84,000 acres of wetlands that help replenish the water supply and protect against flooding. How and why the state's wetlands are continuing to disappear is the subject of Paving Paradise. Journalists Craig Pittman and Matthew Waite spent nearly four years investigating the political expedience, corruption, and negligence on the part of federal and state agencies that led to a failure to enforce regulations on developers. They traveled throughout the state, interviewed hundreds of people, dug through thousands of documents, and analyzed satellite imagery to identify former wetlands that were now houses, stores, and parking lots. The result was an award-winning series, "Vanishing Wetlands," of more than twenty stories in the St. Petersburg Times, exposing the unseen environmental consequences of rampant sprawl. Expanding their work into book form in the tradition of Michael Grunwald's The Swamp, Pittman and Waite explain how wetland protection has become a taxpayer-funded program that creates the illusion of environmental protection while doing little to stem the tide of destruction.
Download or read book Florida Scrub Jay written by Mark Jerome Walters and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florida Historical Society Stetson Kennedy Award A portrait of a species on the brink The only bird species that lives exclusively in Florida, the Florida scrub-jay was once common across the peninsula. But as development over the last 100 years reduced the habitat on which the bird depends from 39 counties to three, the species became endangered. With a writer’s eye and an explorer’s spirit, Mark Walters travels the state to report on the natural history and current predicament of Florida’s flagship bird. Tracing the millions of years of evolution and migration that led to the development of songbirds and this unique species of jay, Walters describes the Florida bird’s long, graceful tail, its hues that blend from one to the next, and its notoriously friendly manner. He then focuses on the massive land-reclamation and canal-building projects of the twentieth century that ate away at the ancient oak scrub heartlands where the bird was abundant, reducing its population by 90 percent. Walters also investigates conservation efforts taking place today. On a series of field excursions, he introduces the people who are leading the charge to save the bird from extinction—those who gather for annual counts of the species in fragmented and overlooked areas of scrub; those who relocate populations of scrub-jays out of harm’s way; those who survey and purchase land to create wildlife refuges; and those who advocate for the prescribed fires that keep scrub ecosystems inhabitable for the species. A loving portrayal of a very special bird, Florida Scrub-Jay is also a thoughtful reflection on the ethical and emotional weight of protecting a species in an age of catastrophe. Now is the time to act, says Walters, or we will lose the scrub-jay forever.
Download or read book Mirage written by Cynthia Barnett and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2009-03-18 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Never before has the case been more compellingly made that America’s dependence on a free and abundant water supply has become an illusion. Cynthia Barnett does it by telling us the stories of the amazing personalities behind our water wars, the stunning contradictions that allow the wettest state to have the most watered lawns, and the thorough research that makes her conclusions inescapable. Barnett has established herself as one of Florida’s best journalists and Mirage is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of the state.” —Mary Ellen Klas, Capital Bureau Chief, Miami Herald “Mirage is the finest general study to date of the freshwater-supply crisis in Florida. Well-meaning villains abound in Cynthia Barnett’s story, but so too do heroes, such as Arthur R. Marshall Jr., Nathaniel Reed, and Marjorie Harris Carr. The author’s research is as thorough as her prose is graceful. Drinking water is the new oil. Get used to it.” —Michael Gannon, Distinguished Professor of history, University of Florida, and author of Florida: A Short History “With lively prose and a journalist’s eye for a good story, Cynthia Barnett offers a sobering account of water scarcity problems facing Florida—one of our wettest states—and the rest of the East Coast. Drawing on lessons learned from the American West, Mirage uses the lens of cultural attitudes about water use and misuse to plead for reform. Sure to engage and fascinate as it informs.” —Robert Glennon, Morris K. Udall Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of Arizona, and author of Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters Part investigative journalism, part environmental history, Mirage reveals how the eastern half of the nation—historically so wet that early settlers predicted it would never even need irrigation—has squandered so much of its abundant freshwater that it now faces shortages and conflicts once unique to the arid West. Florida’s parched swamps and supersized residential developments set the stage in the first book to call attention to the steady disappearance of freshwater in the American East, from water-diversion threats in the Great Lakes to tapped-out freshwater aquifers along the Atlantic seaboard. Told through a colorful cast of characters including Walt Disney, Jeb Bush and Texas oilman Boone Pickens, Mirage ferries the reader through the key water-supply issues facing America and the globe: water wars, the politics of development, inequities in the price of water, the bottled-water industry, privatization, and new-water-supply schemes. From its calamitous opening scene of a sinkhole swallowing a house in Florida to its concluding meditation on the relationship between water and the American character, Mirage is a compelling and timely portrait of the use and abuse of freshwater in an era of rapidly vanishing natural resources.
Download or read book Florida s Paved Bike Trails written by Jeff Kunerth and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2023-05-02 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the release of the first edition of Florida’s Paved Bike Trails, the Sunshine State has added more than 200 miles of multiuse asphalt and concrete paths. This updated edition of the best-selling guide to bicycling in Florida adds twenty-three new trails to an already impressive roster, offering cyclists—as well as rollerbladers, joggers, and walkers—vital details on over sixty trails across Florida. From where to find parking, water, restrooms, and benches, to how to reach nearby beaches, restaurants, museums, and other attractions, the authors expertly guide readers through Florida’s beautiful terrain.
Download or read book Along the Florida Trail written by and published by Big Earth Publishing. This book was released on 2003 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stretching more than 1,200 miles across the Sunshine State, the green ribbon of the Florida National Scenic Trail connects the silent depths of the Everglades cypress swamps with the crystalline white sand beaches of Pensacola. Illustrated with fetching full-color photographs, this volume weaves a narrative of day hikes and backpacking trips with snippets of the natural and cultural history that define the essence of Florida.
Download or read book Rail Trails Florida written by Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and published by Wilderness Press. This book was released on 2016-04-18 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florida visitors are often surprised by both the beauty of its trails and by the great variety of its landscapes. Although Florida doesn't have any mountains, it does offer trails with views of everything from beaches and bluffs to prairies and wetlands. In this comprehensive trail guide, you'll find some of the best, most beautiful trails in Florida. Many of the trails were converted from unused railroad corridors to become some of the best multiuse rail-trails in the state. In this guidebook, experts from Rail-to-Trails Conservancy present their final list of the top trails and rail-trails in Florida, selected from more than 100 in the state. In addition to details about each trail, Rail-Trails Florida also provides information about trail amenities, including restrooms, parking facilities, and water fountains.
Download or read book The Point of Vanishing written by Howard Axelrod and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Into the Wild meets Walden—a lyrical memoir for nature lovers and for anyone who has wondered what it would be like to disconnect from our hyper-connected culture and seek more meaningful connections After losing vision in one eye and becoming estranged from his family and friends, a young man spent two years searching for identity in self-imposed solitude in the backwoods of northern Vermont, where he embarked on a project of stripping away facades and all social ties--and learned to face himself. On a clear May afternoon at the end of his junior year at Harvard, Howard Axelrod played a pick-up game of basketball. In a skirmish for a loose ball, a boy’s finger hooked behind Axelrod’s eyeball and left him permanently blinded in his right eye. A week later, he returned to the same dorm room, but to a different world. A world where nothing looked solid, where the distance between how people saw him and how he saw had widened into a gulf. Desperate for a sense of orientation he could trust, he retreated to a jerry-rigged house in the Vermont woods, where he lived without a computer or television, and largely without human contact, for two years. He needed to find a more lasting sense of meaning away from society’s pressures and rush. Named one of the best books of the year by Slate, Chicago Tribune, Entropy Magazine, and named one of the top 10 memoirs by Library Journal
Download or read book Florida trails as seen from Jacksonville to Key West and from November to April inclusive written by Winthrop Packard and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2021-11-05 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This non-fiction account follows the author's journey through the Florida Trails, one of the eleven National Scenic Trails in the United States, which during the early 20th century, started from Jacksonville to Key West.
Download or read book Explorer s Guide 50 Hikes in Central Florida Second Edition written by Sandra Friend and published by The Countryman Press. This book was released on 2011-01-04 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A hike for every interest and ability! Florida’s landscape is a marvel of diversity, and Central Florida is its pinnacle. Footpaths range through salt marshes, river floodplains, and along coastal dunes and beaches. Trails pass through desert-like scrub islands, jungle-like hydric hammocks, and deep, dark bayous. There’s no better way to take in this natural world than by walking it. Ranging from 1 to 43 miles in length, each hike includes mile-by-mile directions, a topographic map, and information on hike duration, mileage, and trail conditions. This new edition includes 20 new places to explore, from hidden urban gems like the Circle Bar B Ranch in Lakeland and Ponce Preserve in Daytona Beach to the quiet rural landscapes of Catfish Creek State Park and Chinsegut Hill. Old standards like Tenoroc, Disney Wilderness Preserve, and Silver River State Park have been revisited and updated to keep you informed of changes in their trail systems.
Download or read book 50 Great Walks in Florida written by Lucy Beebe Tobias and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2008-02-17 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the deepest swamps to the most civilized sidewalks, 50 Great Walks in Florida features the best short, but significant, outdoor jaunts in the Sunshine State. Experienced tour guide Lucy Tobias fills each page with fascinating local history and vivid descriptions of the sights and sites encountered along the way. 50 Great Walks in Florida is divided by geographic regions and each section includes at least one beach or wetlands walk, a historic walk, a garden walk, a place to see wildlife, and one locale with an unusual natural feature. Included are the Vietnam Memorial, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Coca-Cola Town, Ybor City Fresh Market, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, and even a ghost tour! Tobias recommends additional activities for each walk and offers suggestions for where to stop nearby, including local restaurants, to enhance the regional and cultural experience. This handy guide includes comprehensive locator maps, listings of trip essentials, and useful warnings about possible dangers such as poisonwood sap. These manageable walks will appeal to tourists in search of the real Florida, as well as to residents who want to become better acquainted with their state but still be done in time for lunch. Though shoes may be required, backpacks are not.
Download or read book Roads Through the Everglades written by Bruce D. Epperson and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-06-21 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1915, the road system in south Florida had changed little since before the Civil War. Travelling from Miami to Ft. Myers meant going through Orlando, 250 miles north of Miami. Within 15 years, three highways were dredged and blasted through the Everglades: Ingraham Highway from Homestead, 25 miles south of Miami, to Flamingo on the tip of the peninsula; Tamiami Trail from Miami to Tampa; and Conners Highway from West Palm Beach to Okeechobee City. In 1916, Florida's road commission spent $967. In 1928 it spent $6.8 million. Tamiami Trail, originally projected to cost $500,000, eventually required $11 million. These roads were made possible by the 1920s Florida land boom, the advent of gasoline and diesel-powered equipment to replace animal and steam-powered implements, and the creation of a highway funding system based on fuel taxes. This book tells the story of the finance and technology of the first modern highways in the South.
Download or read book The Case of the Vanishing Blonde written by Mark Bowden and published by Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2020-07-09 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Six captivating true-crime stories, spanning Mark Bowden's long and illustrious career, cover a variety of crimes complicated by extraordinary circumstances. In The Case of the Vanishing Blonde, the veteran reporter revisits some of his most riveting stories and examines the effects of modern technology on the journalistic process. From a story of a campus rape in 1983, to three cold cases solved by the inimitable private detective Ken Brennan, an LAPD investigation that unearths a murderer within its own ranks and the darkest corners of internet chatrooms, this collection contains all the best the genre has to offer. Gripping true crime from 'an old pro' ( Wall Street Journal).
Download or read book Florida Trail Hikes written by Sandra Friend and published by . This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to the best scenic day hikes and overnight trips along the state-spanning Florida Trail, this book helps readers of all backgrounds and experience levels plan an adventure exploring natural Florida.
Download or read book Palestinian Walks written by Raja Shehadeh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-06-03 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A rare historical insight into the tragic changes taking place in Palestine.” —Jimmy Carter From one of Palestine’s leading writers, a lyrical, elegiac account of one man’s wanderings through the landscape he loves—once pristine, now forever changed by settlements and walls—updated with a new afterword by the author. “I often come to walk in these hills,” I said to the man who was doing all the talking and seemed to be the commander. “In fact I was once here with my wife, it was 1999, and some of your soldiers shot at us.” “It was over on that side,” the soldier pointed out. “I was there,” he said, smiling. When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was traveling through a vanishing landscape. In recent years, his hikes have become less than bucolic and sometimes downright dangerous. That is because his home is Ramallah, on the Palestinian West Bank, and the landscape he traverses is now the site of a tense standoff between his fellow Palestinians and settlers newly arrived from Israel. In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth and ancient monasteries built more than a thousand years ago. Shehadeh's love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography. But latterly, as seemingly endless concrete is poured to build settlements and their surrounding walls, he finds the old trails are now impassable and the countryside he once traversed freely has become contested ground. He is harassed by Israeli border patrols, watches in terror as a young hiking companion picks up an unexploded missile and even, on one occasion when accompanied by his wife, comes under prolonged gunfire. Amid the many and varied tragedies of the Middle East, the loss of a simple pleasure such as the ability to roam the countryside at will may seem a minor matter. But in Palestinian Walks, Raja Shehadeh's elegy for his lost footpaths becomes a heartbreaking metaphor for the deprivations of an entire people estranged from their land.
Download or read book A Dirty Old Man Goes To The Dogs written by and published by Bluefish Books. This book was released on with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
