Birding and hiking win the day in Tallahassee. Now DeSantis needs to sign parks bill | Opinion

In a rare moment for the Florida Legislature, it was birds and hiking — and the voice of the people — for the win this year: Lawmakers approved the important State Park Preservation Act.

The Legislature, with unanimous votes in both chambers, agreed on legislation to focus state park management on conservation and passive recreation and prohibit most development.

That may not sound like much unless you know that lawmakers’ support for the measure was a much-needed repudiation of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposal last summer — the Great Outdoors Initiative — to allow development in parks, such as hotels, golf courses, tennis courts, pickleball courts and lodges.

Instead of paving over paradise, as some have called the DeSantis effort, Florida’s leaders want to preserve it. That’s something to celebrate.

When the news first broke of the DeSantis scheme to allow development in state parks, Florida residents howled in the kind of loud and unified voice that is so rare in this state. They let their representatives know that they value our 175 state parks in all their passive glory — for hiking, birding, camping, boating and other activities that do little to disturb the land.

And they weren’t alone. Interestingly, opposition to the Great Outdoors Initiative also came from lawmakers within DeSantis’ own party. Two Republicans, Sen. Gayle Harrell and Rep. John Snyder, both from Stuart, took the lead in writing legislation to prohibit construction of event sports facilities and hotels in the parks. Also speaking up for parks: Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and then-Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.

During the 2025 session, there was some debate over which version of the bill should go forward, and a last-minute amendment that environmentalists at first saw as an attempt to bog down the bill by Miami Republican Sen. Alexis Calatayud caused consternation for a moment. The amendment allowed for repair and maintenance of existing facilities in state parks and removed an occupancy limit of six people for cabins, among other changes. In the end, the amendment was included and the bill to safeguard the parks passed. Now the governor needs to sign it.

That should be a given. This was a bipartisan effort, and a coalition for more than 60 environmental groups lobbied for the passage of the act, too. That says a lot about just how much Floridians love their parks.

“State parks are wildly popular, I mean wildly, almost unheard-of bipartisan support among Florida citizens, the electorate, and lawmakers. The support is impossible to ignore,” Cris Costello of the Sierra Club said in a Tallahassee Democrat story.

Florida, as we have said before, already has plenty of golf courses and lodges. But the wild land? That’s irreplaceable — and a reason that people love to come here.

There are good practical arguments for keeping the land as is, too. In 2024, Florida parks attracted over 30 million visitors, with an estimated economic impact of more than $3.9 billion. Natural spaces are home to alligators, manatees and over 300 types of birds. That draws visitors.

DeSantis’ proposal would have included Miami-Dade’s Oleta River State Park, where the administration wanted to build pickleball courts and cabins. Other over-the-top development ideas: 50-room luxury lodges at Anastasia State Park in St. Johns County and Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Walton County, a flying disc course at Alfred B. Maclay Gardens State Park in Tallahassee and three golf courses at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Martin County. The proposals, which would have affected nine state parks, were only scheduled for an hour of public hearings before they were supposed to move forward.

Fortunately, after protests and pushback, the DeSantis administration shelved the plans. And that’s when the need for this legislation became apparent.

The governor said at a May 7 roundtable on taxes in Tampa that he intends to sign the bill, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. That’s good to hear. This is a course correction that the governor of Florida really needs to embrace.

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This story was originally published May 20, 2025 at 7:56 AM.