Photo Credit: Cape Coral Parks and Recreation
How to “be green” and promote the environment is not only an appropriate issue for parks and recreation, but one that our profession should lead! Who better than parks and recreation to identify and communicate the importance of environmental awareness, education, conservation, and sustainability—not only for today’s residents, but for future generations? Some of the earliest experiences children have can be traced back to parks--going to a playground, participating in an athletic activity, or taking a school field trip to a nature preserve. By leading the effort to teach current and future generations about the significance of the environment, limited natural resources, and sustainability, as well as offering relevant education and recreation programs, we help encourage behaviors that will respect and preserve the environment in the long run.
The city of Cape Coral Parks and Recreation Department recently received the Florida Recreation and Park Association’s “2015 Agency Excellence Award for Environmental Sustainability,” the highest honor at the state level. The department demonstrated how it successfully integrated an environmental focus into its parks, programs, administration, marketing, and community involvement. Enhancements to the city’s environmental parks, such as the addition of a new boardwalk for manatee viewing, and an ADA-accessible fishing pad, were factors contributing to the award, as were more conventional “green” initiatives such as energy-savings measures and water-conservation efforts. Additionally, one of the most important successes highlighted was the implementation of environmental-education programs and eco-friendly activities,, thanks to strong citizen and community involvement and collaborative partnerships.
Improving Existing Programs
The city of Cape Coral is a large peninsula, 120 square miles, located in Southwest Florida and surrounded by mangrove forests and environmentally sensitive land. It was developed as a master-planned, pre-platted community with over 400 miles of canals, more than any other city in the world. The Recreation Department’s Environmental Recreation Division serves as the backbone to the community’s education efforts and was formed to instill an appreciation of the outdoors, to raise consciousness on local wildlife conservation efforts, and to encourage residents to conserve natural resources as well as reduce, reuse, and recycle. In 2010, city council sought to bring more eco-tourism and environmental activism to the area, which forced the question, “How could we improve existing program offerings, facilities, and resources, without additional funding, to further environmental education, health, and activism to meet council’s goals?” As a result of this challenge, we discovered that one of the major resources at our disposal was local citizens and environmental groups, as their passion for the subject matter already exists!