Why I'm Walking for Wild Florida –
Open Letter to the State Legislature from a Young Floridian

Dear Legislators,

I am writing to you from my campsite on the beautiful Suwannee River, eleven days into my 300-mile Walk for Wild Florida. I’m a 19 year old recent graduate from Eastside High School in Gainesville, backpacking across North Florida to deliver a simple message to Tallahassee: Please re-commit to Florida's future by funding Florida Forever and other conservation programs. My generation is counting on you to preserve our natural heritage. It’s what voters demanded when they overwhelmingly passed Amendment 1 in 2014.

On March 7th as the legislative session begins, I’ll walk up the steps of the state capitol to deliver hundreds of postcards written by Floridians of every political persuasion. As your constituents, we want to remind you that our state's greatest asset is our natural environment.
Tromping down limerock roads where friendly hunters in pickup trucks stopped to give me advice, then through the endless longleaf pine stands of Osceola National Forest, and along the panoramic Suwannee River bluffs, this journey is reminding me of how lucky we are to call this place home.

I’ve learned a lot talking to people in rural communities, about how their way of life is rooted in these wild places. Trevor, a teenager from Lake Butler, told me “I love to hunt and fish, and I want to see that my kids and their kids can have this land.”
Floridians realize how important wild places are for our clean water, jobs, and way of life. We are united by our connection and commitment to wild Florida. These places are our pride, our heritage, and ultimately, our legacy.

But I’m troubled by the disconnect between how much us Floridians care about this place and how little is being done to protect it. As you know, in 2014 three in four voters supported a constitutional amendment to create a $1 billion annual fund for the “acquisition and restoration” of wild lands in Florida. This overwhelming public mandate sought to restore funding to programs like Florida Forever, a popular bipartisan program which identifies and purchases critical wild lands - from watersheds to wildlife corridors to hunting grounds.  

Florida Forever’s budget had been gradually cut by 97% from a previous level of $300 million a year, creating an opportunity for our state to once again become a leader in bipartisan conservation. But the legislature instead used this fund to replace existing maintenance expenses, and only 2% of it went to Florida Forever. According to the Florida Conservation Voters, we’re now spending $50 million a year less on conservation.   We are running out of time. By 2060, our population will swell to 36 million and we’ll lose an area of wild and rural land the size of Vermont to development. New roads and subdivisions further fragment wildlife habitat and degrade ecosystems. There’s over 1.15 million acres of proposed purchases that could restore critical links in wildlife corridors, but these lands are under urgent threat. 

If we fail to act soon, everything from our favorite canoeing spots to our clean water to our entire tourism and natural resources economy will be imperiled. Inaction is no longer an option. 

I’m walking to Tallahassee to remind you that Floridians are speaking up - as voters, as stewards of the land, and as patriots- to say that we care about protecting our shared home for future generations. I’m calling on every Floridian to join our cause and tell their legislators that protecting wild lands and funding conservation programs needs to be a priority during the upcoming legislative session.

As a young Floridian I am counting on our political leaders to be good stewards of this state, so that one day we can tell our children and grandchildren: we protected this for you.

Oscar Psychas
On the Florida Trail, Hamilton County

To write a postcard to the legislature free of charge, go to postcard.com/impact/speak-up-for-wild-florida. Get involved at walkforwildflorida.org  


This is a photo of my friends and me (the one with the rope) on the Chassahowitzka River near the Gulf Coast.  It’s a memory that speaks of the power of wild Florida I’ve experienced backpacking or canoeing or swimming.  It reminds me of how lucky we are to still have wild places in Florida – worlds of white-sand beaches, crystal clear waters, primeval swamps and marshes, sunlit pine woods. 

But the Florida we love is fast disappearing. As Florida’s population continues to swell to 36 million by 2060, development is predicted to pave over an area of wild land almost twice the size of the Everglades, and leave other places fragmented by roads and ecologically degraded. It will mean the loss of wild species, of ecosystems, and of much of the natural beauty and richness that brought so many of us here in the first place. It means that all of us who value having nature in our life will have our quality of life suffer.

But Wild Florida is still out there, and most Floridians want our leaders to take action to protect it.

That’s why in February 2017 I’m planning to walk 300 miles to Tallahassee from my home in Gainesville, Florida. The 2017 legislative session is coming up, and I want to walk on behalf of all Floridians to demand that our state lawmakers follow the wishes of voters and fully fund the Florida Forever program to purchase and protect critical habitat.  As I walk through wild places like the Suwannee and the Big Bend, I want to showcase the natural beauty our shared home still has.

I'm releasing a "Letter from A Young Floridian" to our leaders- to let them know that they have a responsibility to protect the jewel that is Florida for future generations.

I hope to be a part of a movement of Floridians of all types standing up for the Florida they love. If you can take one thing away from this, I hope you can reach out to your state legislature and let them know that protecting wild Florida matters- take the "Challenge for wild Florida" at the link below!
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Background to the Florida Forever Program
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Florida has had a proud bipartisan tradition of protecting our natural treasures for future generations. Florida Forever and its predecessor, Preservation 2000, represent this bipartisan spirit.  These two highly successful programs have protected over 2.5 million acres of Florida’s unique and endangered habitats. During the recession, Florida Forever’s budget was slashed by more than 95% from what was once a $300 million program. But even after the economy recovered (and the pressure of development on habitat renewed), Florida’s legislature didn’t restore funding. That’s why in 2014 75% of Florida voters voted for a constitutional amendment to require an existing tax fund (of about $750 million) to be used only for the “acquisition and restoration of conservation lands.”
When voters supported this, they clearly expected that much of this fund would be used for land conservation programs like Florida Forever. But since then, our legislature has knowingly misspent this money to replace already existing funds for the salaries and operating expenses of state agency- with no net gain for environmental protection programs. Meanwhile Florida Forever only received $15 million dollars. If our leaders are clearly misusing these funds, they are violating the state constitution they swore to uphold. And as real estate prices rise and development further encroaches, we’re running out of time to protect Florida’s last wild areas. Floridians have the right to feel that our people and environment are being shortchanged- that’s why the nonprofit Earthjustice filed a lawsuit on this issue.

Our legislators are calculating that they can get away with it if most of us are ignoring what’s going on. If Florida’s citizens stand up for protecting wild Florida and what it means to our economy and quality of life, legislators will have to listen. If we remind them of their duty to follow our state constitution and the will of voters, they will have to act. That’s why I want to ask on behalf of all Florida voters that this legislative session, our legislature properly uses our Amendment 1 fund for conservation as voters intended. And that includes $175 million (the recommendation by the Florida Water & Land Legacy group that sponsored the Amendment) of these funds for the Florida Forever program.
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To get involved, check out 

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Feel free to reach out to me about joining me on the walk or collaborating with you or your organization at opsychas@gmail.com
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