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Split Oak Forest
By Terry Lloyd
For the News-Gazette
About a dozen Osceola County residents concerned about the environment attended a meeting organized by Barbra Cady, a Democrat candidate for State House District 42, at the St. Cloud Library on March 11.
They hope to gain more residential control over environmental issues close to home by forming Citizens for a Toxic Free Community. Their actions come in the wake of two recent Osceola County Commission decisions relating to the environment: the approval of a road through the Split Oak Forest mitigation bank and earlier action to accept coal ash into a private landfill near Holopaw. Both actions were opposed by a considerable number of people. Cady was a prominent voice against the coal ash.
Speakers at the meeting also featured Chuck O’Neal, president of Speak Up Wekiva. Along with other organizations in the Wekiva Springsshed Alliance, his organization has been successful in placing a charter amendment on the November 2020 ballot in Orange County to protect the Wekiva and Econlockhatchee Rivers. While residents working to preserve the environment is nothing new, the Orange County charter amendment would implement provisions termed, “the rights of nature,” a growing trend in environmental defense.
The idea is that these two rivers have rights, just like individuals and corporations, under law,” O’Neal said. “They have the right to exist, to flow, the right to be a clean, healthy ecosystem, and residents in general, not just adjacent property owners, must have the ability to defend the rivers’ rights.”
Nationally and internationally, the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund are propelling the movement through changes to international and national laws. Cady explained, “people no longer feel like they have any legal power in determining what is right in their communities.”
She added that the Osceola County Commission’s decisions on Split Oak and the landfill coal ash make that apparent. She said she has tried to work with the commission and county staff to compose a charter amendment for Osceola, similar to the Orange County amendment, but “everything has just stopped.” She continues to advocate for a “Kissimmee River Bill of Rights” to ensure the river’s ecosystem, practically destroyed in the name of flood control measures, continues to be restored along its full length. Similar action is taking place by residents in Brevard County on behalf of the Indian River Lagoon.
The long-term goal of organizations such as Citizens for a Toxic Free Community and Speak Up Wekiva is to see meaningful state laws enacted to protect the rights of nature, according to O’Neal, but he is quick to recognize they are fighting an uphill battle, with development, construction and property rights interests aligned against them both locally and in Tallahassee.
For more information on the concept of the rights of nature, see www.celdf.org
