Today involved a big change of scenery on our Blue Springs State Park Alternative Break trip, taking us away from the park to another beautiful setting, the beach! Our travels took us just an hour away to North Peninsula State Park. Our service task today was to scan the Flagler beach and tackle the one thing that is detrimental to our planet: trash. With huge trash bags in hand, we walked up and down the beautiful Florida shoreline and removed everything we could find: bottle caps, bottles, tennis shoes, and an assortment of other random objects. Although it seems like a simple task, we quickly realized the large amount of trash we collected was benefiting the environment in a large way. Our service today prevented the garbage from washing into the Atlantic and being ingested by the animals that inhabit it. Every little bit of trash removed helps our planet. We hope that others watching us clean will inspire them to take the extra effort to throw out their waste, to make a change that will benefit the environment around them.
After volunteering at Flagler State Beach, we discussed eco-tourism and eco-conservation. Our reflection activity involved drawing our interpretation of these terms. Emily described eco-tourism as the use of natural resources for commercial and economic purposes that supports conservation of the vital resources. A good example of this is Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. Eco-conservation is the preservation of environments in their unchanged form. Joshua, one of our two camp leaders, believed that the two are not intertwined because it is possible to conserve natural resources without recruiting visitors or making money.
Blue Springs State Park is a great example of how they are related. 1 million visitors come to BSSP every year which provides income to the park in order to preserve the habitat that encompasses alligators, blue herrings, catfish, tilapias, and of course manatees! Picking up shoes, and bottles among other trash another step closer to eco-conservation.
Goodnight!
Nelson and "Little" Emily
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