Ruskin is an unincorporated census-designated place in Hillsborough County, Florida. The area was part of the chiefdom of the Uzita at the time of the Hernando de Soto expedition in 1539. The community was founded August 7, 1908, on the shores of the Little Manatee River. It was developed by Dr. George McAnelly Miller, an attorney and professor at Ruskin College in Trenton, Missouri, and Addie Dickman Miller. It is named after the essayist and social critic John Ruskin. Miller established the short-lived Ruskin College. It was one of the Ruskin Colleges.
Biscayne National Park is an American national park in southern Florida, south of Miami. The park preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs. Ninety-five percent of the park is water, and the shore of the bay is the location of an extensive mangrove forest. The park covers 172,971 acres and includes Elliott Key, the park's largest island and northernmost of the true Florida Keys, formed from fossilized coral reef. The islands farther north in the park are transitional islands of coral and sand. The offshore portion of the park includes the northernmost region of the Florida Reef, one of the largest coral reefs in the world.
Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.
Guanacaste Conservation Area is an administrative area which is managed by the Sistema Nacional de Areas de Conservacion (SINAC) of Costa Rica for conservation in the northwestern part of Costa Rica. It contains three national parks, as well as wildlife refuges and other nature reserves. The area contains the Area de Conservación Guanacaste World Heritage Site, which comprises four areas.
The Back Bay is the colloquial term for the inland delta in Newport Beach, California. It connects the Upper Newport Bay with the Newport Harbor. It is a nature reserve home to several species of birds with hiking and biking trails. The bay is recognized for protection by the California Bays and Estuaries Policy.
The Key West National Wildlife Refuge is a 189,497 acre (766.867 km2) National Wildlife Refuge located in Monroe County, Florida, between Key West, Florida and the Dry Tortugas. Only 2,019 acres (8.171 km2) of land are above sea level, on several keys within the refuge. These keys are unpopulated and are also designated as Wilderness within the Florida Keys Wilderness. The refuge was established to provide a preserve and breeding ground for native birds and other wildlife as well as to provide habitat and protection for endangered and threatened fish, wildlife, plants and migratory birds.
The Manatee River is a 36-mile-long (58 km) river in Manatee County, Florida. The river forms in the northeastern corner of Manatee County and flows into the Gulf of Mexico at the southern edge of Tampa Bay.
The Weedon Island Preserve is a 3,190 acre natural area situated along the western shore of Tampa Bay, and located on 1800 Weedon Drive NE. St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is predominately an estuarine preserve composed of upland and aquatic ecosystems such as mangrove forests, pine/scrubby flatwoods, and maritime hammock, and is home to a variety of native wildlife. The preserve is also a designated archaeological area with several shell mounds identified on the property that provide evidence of early peoples who inhabited the land for thousands of years.
Charlotte Harbor Estuary, the second largest bay in Florida, is located on the Gulf of Mexico coast of west Florida, mostly (2/3) in Charlotte County, Florida with the remaining 1/3 in Lee County. The harbor's mouth is located behind Gasparilla Island, one of the many coastal barrier islands on the southwest coast of Florida, with access from the Gulf of Mexico through the Boca Grande Pass between Gasparilla Island on the north and Lacosta Island on the south. Charlotte Harbor covers about 270 sq mi (700 km2)
In 1999, the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve was designated in St. Johns and Flagler counties, Florida as a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) system. The GTM Research Reserve represents the east Florida sub-region of the Carolinian bioregion. It is one of 29 NERRs in 23 states and one territory. GTM is one of three NERRs in Florida, and is administered on behalf of the state by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Florida Coastal Office as part of a network that includes forty-one aquatic preserves, three NERRs, a National Marine Sanctuary, the Coral Reef Conservation Program and the Florida Oceans and Coastal Council. Additional interests are held in the research and management of the GTM and connected preserved or conserved lands including:
Elkhorn Slough is a 7-mile-long (11 km) tidal slough and estuary on Monterey Bay in Monterey County, California. It is California's second largest estuary and the United States' first estuarine sanctuary. The community of Moss Landing and the Moss Landing Power Plant are located at the mouth of the slough on the bay.
William W. Powers State Recreation Area is an Illinois state park administered by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources on 580 acres (230 ha) in the Hegewisch community area of the City of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The area includes 419 acres (170 ha) of water in Wolf Lake that provides about 6 miles (10 km) of shoreline to fishermen. The park hosts about half a million visitors annually. The park contains numerous species, and is one of the most important biological sites in the Chicago region.
Tholkappia Poonga or Adyar Eco Park is an ecological park set up by the Government of Tamil Nadu in the Adyar estuary area of Chennai, India. According to the government, the project, conceived based on the master plan for the restoration of the vegetation of the freshwater ecosystems of the Coromandel Coast, especially the fragile ecosystem of the Adyar estuary and creek, was expected to cost around ₹ 1,000 million which will include the beautification of 358 acres of land. The park's ecosystem consists of tropical dense evergreen forest, predominantly comprising trees and shrubs that have thick dark green foliage throughout the year, with over 160 woody species, and comprises six vegetative elements such as trees, shrubs, lianas, epiphytes, herbs and tuberous species. The park was opened to public by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on 22 January 2011 and named after the renowned Tamil scholar Tholkappiar. About 65 percent of the park is covered by water and artefacts and signages. In the first 2 months of its inauguration, nearly 4,000 children from several schools in the city and the nearby Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts have visited the park to learn about wetland conservation, eco-restoration and water management. While the first phase of the ecopark covered about 4.16 acres of CRZ-III area, the entire area covered under the second phase falls under this category.
There are a number of environmental issues in Florida. A large portion of Florida is a biologically diverse ecosystem, with large wetlands in the Everglades. Management of environmental issues related to the everglades and the larger coastal waters and wetlands have been important to the history of Florida and the development of multiple parts of the economy of Florida, including the influential agricultural industry. This biodiversity leaves much of Florida's ecological ecosystem vulnerable to invasive species and human sources of industrial pollution and waste.
Friends of Seagate Inc. was founded in the late 1980s by Kafi Benz as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Sarasota, Florida. The historic preservation group lead local efforts protect historic property in the Sarasota-Bradenton area from commercial development. The group later expanded its scope to include environmental conservation. Its most notable project was the preservation of Seagate, the former home of Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. and his wife, Gwendolyn, and its later owners, Mabel and Freeman Horton. In 2002 the organization tried to secure Rus-in- Ur'be, an undeveloped parcel of land in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a local park; however, as of 2014, real estate developers intend to build condominium units at the site.
The Balm-Boyette Scrub Nature Preserve is a 5,723-acre (2,316 ha) preserve located in Hillsborough County, Florida. It was purchased through joint funding from the County's Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program (ELAPP) and the State of Florida's Conservation and Recreation Lands (CARL) Program. While it consists largely of abandoned phosphate pits, it has a large area of undisturbed scrub habitat. Natural habitats within the site include sand pine scrub, xeric oak scrub, pine flatwoods, hardwood hammock, wet prairie, freshwater marsh, cypress swamp, and hardwood swamp. During the 1960s the land was pitted with phosphate mines. The natural waterflow had been altered from its original state into a series of stagnant pools. In 2016, a project was undertaken under the umbrella of Swiftmud's Surface Water Improvement and Management, or SWIM, program. The project will create a "habitat mosaic" with habitat for wading birds as well as upland creatures.
The mission of the Conservancy of Southwest Florida is to "protect Southwest Florida’s unique natural environment and quality of life, now and forever." The organization is located on 21 acres in Naples, Florida, and features the Conservancy of Southwest Florida Nature Center.
Lemon Bay is a long, narrow and shallow body of water covering 8,000 acres in Charlotte County, Florida and Sarasota County, Florida. It is protected as the Lemon Bay Aquatic Preserve, designated in 1986. It is one of five Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves. The bay is fed by one Gulf pass, Stump Pass, and seven tributaries and includes areas of mangrove, marsh grass, and seagrass. It provides habitat for bird, invertebrate and fish species and offers fishing, kayaking, birding, wading and beachcombing opportunities.
Boca Ciega Bay is a body of water connected to the Gulf of Mexico on the west-central coast of Florida. It is bordered by Gulfport, St. Petersburg, and other municipalities in Pinellas County. Clam Bayou estuary feeds into the bay.
Florida is host to many types of fauna
