Pine Island has a rhythm all its own—beachless shorelines, working boats in the distance, artists chasing the light across the water, and locals who know every back channel by heart. It’s the kind of place where sunsets come easy, inspiration is everywhere, and stories have a way of finding you when you least expect them.
A painted coconut, colorful and quirky–like the people here!
Retirement was supposed to mean quiet island sunsets for PI Richard Noggin…
Instead, the suspicious death of a beloved artist pulls him and his dangerously resourceful partner Brandi into a situation where Richard is once again struggling to keep the investigation—and his dignity—from spiraling out of control before islanders lose what’s left of their hidden paradise in the mangroves.
Pine Island may be quieter—and have a lot less traffic—than Orlando, but Richard and Brandi quickly discover that trouble travels just as well by boat. Between the island’s artists, fishermen, and a few outsiders with disruptive plans, the next Naked Eye investigation begins where old Florida charm and mischief meet.
It feels good to be back in Richard and Brandi’s world again.
For those of you who read Naked Alliances, how have you been?Are you as excited for Book Two as I am?
I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to—and whether you’re ready for another round of trouble with these two.
Last year I picked up a brush again for the first time since surgery in 2022. The result was this small, slightly unruly handful of imaginary wildflowers. They weren’t meant to be anything serious — just an excuse to see if the creative gears still turned.
They did.
The painting has since found a new home, which feels fitting. Wildflowers tend to wander.
Around the same time I opened another old folder that had been sitting quietly for a long while: the next story in the Naked Eye series.
It’s been nearly ten years since Naked Alliances was published, and I wasn’t sure whether Richard and Brandi would still have anything left to say. As it turns out, they did not stay quiet for long.
The working title for the new book is Picture This, and I’m currently moving through the closing stretch of Act I. It feels a little like stepping back onto an old dock after the tide has gone out and come back again — familiar boards, a few new creaks, and the same wide water beyond.
I’ll be posting occasional updates here as the story takes shape, along with a painting or photograph now and then from island life.
On October 4, 2021, I wrote my last post here titled No Growth Without Change. We had just made the difficult decision to move from our waterfront home in Matlacha to a flood X zone on Pine Island. We knew flood insurance rates were about to skyrocket. We knew development and climate pressures were changing the coastline. We made a pragmatic choice.
At the time, it felt abrupt.
In hindsight, it may have saved us.
On May 06, 2022, I shattered my shoulder. Not cracked. Not fractured. Shattered. The bone was crushed so severely I was told it would not heal without surgery.
On September 23, I had a reverse total shoulder replacement.
Five days later, Hurricane Ian hit.
We evacuated to a friend’s apartment on the mainland. I was swollen from surgery, immobilized, and in pain. There was no ice. No air-conditioning. Greg’s truck flooded. We had no vehicle. There were no rentals available anywhere.
We ended up in Orlando for three months so I could begin therapy before we ever laid eyes on our home again.
We knew from reports that it was structurally intact. Friends cleaned out our refrigerator so we wouldn’t return to something worse. Half of Matlacha, where we once lived on the water, was simply gone.
When we finally came back, the island was altered. So was I.
For the better part of two years, there wasn’t much I could do besides sit in a chair and play video games. That may sound indulgent, but it wasn’t. Nerve damage does strange things. Messages from my brain to my hand sometimes still get confused. I’ve reached for a fork and found myself holding an ink pen instead. It keeps life interesting.
Oddly enough, the games helped. The fine motor control. The repetition. The hand–eye coordination. Streaming them on Twitch became my primary social interaction. It was, and still is, my little window into the world while my nerves sort themselves out.
Typing helped. Painting helps more.
I used to post pics of sunsets across the canal on FB almost every evening. That ritual stopped. I stopped painting. I stopped writing. Chronic pain has a way of narrowing your world. Trauma narrows it further.
But the sunsets never stopped.
Recently, I’ve returned to the easel. My mentor described my latest painting as “awesome,” praising the subtle shifts in skin tone and the handling of drapery and background.
Readers of Naked Alliances once called it riveting, gritty, heart-pounding. Those words feel like they were written about someone else — and yet they weren’t. They were written about me.
Picture This is the working title for a new book I am writing. Book Two in the Naked Eye series. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s coming.
The truth is, I didn’t lose my creative life. It went quiet while I healed.
We recently moved again. On one hand, we were just about settled in our new home on the island of Matlacha when we made the decision to move. On the other hand, the move affords us the opportunity to do some other things we had hoped to do in our retirement.
It was a really tough decision that had to be made quickly and it was deeply shocking to leave what we had just finished making our own. The thing is, we got an offer we couldn’t refuse on our Matlacha house and we didn’t even have the house on the market. Sadly, we were feeling settled as if we were finally able to call it home being there two good years after having been in Orlando for decades.
On the up-side, we have made some good friends here, which initially seemed might be a great challenge as, on first glance, there didn’t seem to be a lot of like-minded folks here. That was an illusion based on the highly visible unlike-minded folks. Most like-minded folks are a bit quieter about their business, but there are plenty of them around here.
We looked at waterfront properties north of Tampa where the water quality is better. There was nothing affordable there and then we got wind of the fact that all waterfront property, which requires flood insurance, was getting a HUGE cost increase beginning last Friday. People with $1200.00 policies are now expected to come up with $8500.00 per year for flood insurance. Climate change and years of waterfront people not paying risk-based premiums resulted in this outrageous hike. While we don’t like it, we also know it’s best for the environment that there is limited ability to develop waterfront in the future. Unfortunately, it prices out some people who have lived it all of their lives. Such a sad situation.
In the end, we made the decision to stay on Pine Island in a flood X zone that doesn’t require flood insurance. There was literally one house available and we grabbed it. Pine Island is the main island that Matlacha bridge was built for. Settled in the late 1800s, it was once home to a large tribe of Calusa Indigenous Peoples who met their demise along with many in the 1700s-early 1800s. It is said that Ponce De Leon was wounded here and the wound resulted in his death. There are mounds, canals, and villages they built on the islands that the Randell Research Center Maintains today.
When I am out kayaking, I often think of the indigenous people who called the coastal areas their home.
I am particularly fond of mangroves as they buffer our coasts and have a profound and most important ecosystem. Many miles and acres of them have been removed/destroyed for development and that complicates the abilities to deal with hurricanes and other large storms. The limited mangroves remaining are teaming with crabs, red fish, snook, and other species and provide habitat for our beautiful water birds who are dependent on the shellfish they harbor.
The three “Small Treasures” done in alcohol ink and acrylics with silicone were added to my website a while back. I’d like to see them framed as a gallery collection. It’s hard to tell here in these photos, but the canvases are highly textured with impressions. BTW…if you like my art, do visit my website and sign up for my newsletter. I am planning a majorclearance salefor the holidays and things will be drastically reduced in price.
Hi, friends, The past couple of months are been filled with professional frustrations for me. These are the sort of things that take the fun out of the creative process.
First, for the past couple of months, I have spent a great deal of time trying to make coconut fish. I don’t like to admit defeat, but I truly got myself frustrated with these bad boys and girls. The coconuts and wooden pieces all had to be primed first, then required two or three coats of acrylic paint. The fine detail was painted on the tails and fins. Then, it became time to attempt to insert the fins into the coconut fish husks. I cut into the husks. The fins scraped off more of the delicate paint which required more touch up.
Abandoned coconut fish
This all sounds so simple, and that’s what I thought, too, before I tried. Too much frustration for too long of a period of time resulted in me deciding to abandon that project, at least for a while.
Second, website woes are ongoing. I can’t say I wasn’t warned, but it’s another frustration. Anytime there is a new plugin update, theme update, or WordPress update, there are kinks in the system that have to be worked out. Sometimes they work themselves out with the next updates and sometimes they linger a while. At any rate, such things make me feel like the site appears unprofessional, so that’s another frustration.
Finally, I have had people offer $30-$40 for canvas originals worth at least $400.00 posted on the website and I simply refuse to set prices that low. I have more than that vested in the smallest canvases in supplies, paints, canvas, and brush wear & tear. Never mind the artist’s time and creativity that deserve compensation. Not going to do that.
I didn’t really want to do prints for my artwork and I’ll tell you why.
I like to think about how something as detailed and time-consuming as my art belongs only to one person in the world and no one else, (not even me). When you put that much love into something, I think it becomes infused with luck and good fortune. Making prints waters that down. Everything original sold gets a letter of authenticity.
People make prints to either make more money off the same design or to please the masses. Money and pleasing the masses is not more important to me than art itself or the making of it.
That being said, I have to make my art available to an all-inclusive price range and I can do that in these two ways: A) Making prints, and B) selling functional art made from originals. So, there you have it.
Now there is a “Prints” page on the website and it includes some fantastic medium and frame selections. A few functional items are mentioned and there is so much more. I’m going to purchase some functional items to sell at shows next season locally so I have them on hand for such. We, my husband and I, are hoping to do more shows once the tourist season starts and I have more original artwork to sell. He sells his pens and I sell more prints than originals from the website, but it is what it is, and I’m good with that.
I’ve just got to see if I can find more ways to store canvas in my tiny studio. OR, reprice originals to move them, like it or not.
Ever evolving sunset.
I also need to get back to filing the art process and getting videos up on YouTube and Instagram. Ah, no matter what we do, marketing raises its ugly head to interfere.
BTW, I am considering getting my art blog onto my self-hosted website for SEO reasons. If and when I do that, I will let you know here. Likewise, I would get my writer blog onto my self-hosted author website. This WordPress blog would be archived and you could follow me in either of those two places or both.
You see that I don’t spam people with daily material. I get to do that with Instagram…lol
Please do check out both sites and get subscribed if you haven’t already. And if there is something wonky on my website, just know it will likely get sorted out soon. 😊
In the village of Matlacha, where the dolphins play, you can watch them from the bridge as the bulls and cows lead their pods along the channel. Another favorite way to see the dolphins is simply by being out on the water in a boat or kayak. They often swim alongside, playing and rolling in the wake. On occasion, they leap from the water. It’s truly fascinating to have them come up to your kayak for a “chat”.
“Matlacha (Matt-la-shay) where dolphins play.” is a slogan you’ll hear all around the islands in Southwest Florida. This 4-panel piece was a joy to create and gave me opportunity to dabble in creativity involving art that is more crafty than painting. I love working with foils. It’s a real challenge to work with the thin membranes without tearing them so I have come to depend on tips and tricks learned from other artists.
If you would like to learn more about artwork, we have a collaborative on Facebook called Art Way Place. It’s a group of artists and photographers of all skill levels sharing their work, ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. We’d love to have you join us. We also do giveaways in drawings every once in a while in order to encourage others to get involved in expressing their creativity. Some pretty nice gifts are offered.
There is also a deal on my “inspired art” on my website for Subscribers. The newsletter is once monthly and I promise not to spam you or sell your email.
My next project includes coconut fish in Matlacha colors as well as getting my husband’s turned wood and resin pens up on the website at Gromit’s Lathe. Looking forward to seeing you there.
You may or may not have noticed that I added a new item to my menu. I have not painted much in the past few months. I’ve been incredibly busy building a new commerce website for my artwork. I hope to one day be able to sell prints directly from the site, but was not willing to compromise quality to get a print-on-demand service. I have done a couple of pours.
Water Dragon In Miami Dolphin colors
Blue Wave 1
The issue is that Prinitify, Printly, iCanvas and others do not have a very good reputation with either customer service or product quality. Canvases are poorly constructed and true color and image detail are not good. So, I’ve partnered with another print company out of California that offers exceptional quality and customer service. However, they do not offer print-on-demand.
Instead, their clients upload a file of high-fidelity images that are then printed on canvas and framed, if desired. They also offer float frames and prints on other items such as coasters, cards, mouse pads, etc..
Another feature of their service is that they will print on a variety of mediums including canvas, thin board canvas wraps, acrylic, metal, wood and a variety of other options. I think giving customers options is paramount to success when it comes to artwork for their walls. None of the print-on-demand services offer options like these.
The company primarily deals with photographers but they also fare well with artists who can upload high fidelity prints. So, that gave me a wonderful opportunity to ask the RS for a new camera. Win! Win! Right?
I don’t know much about photography but I have spoken with people who do and they helped me select a camera, a Nikon D3300, that’s supposed to be fairly simple to use for high quality prints and I have been assured by the print company that these photos should be fine for resizing. A photographer friend of ours is coming to spend the week with us in April. I hope to learn all I can from him, and get a file uploaded with the print company so I’ll be ready for new customers.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be adding more exclusive and inspired art products to the website, as well as new categories.
As far as writing goes. I have not given up on the Naked Eye Series. Sad to have to report that the Parliament House, an Orange Blossom Trail icon, had to close its doors d/t hard times with the pandemic. They are hoping to reopen somewhere else, but I’m certain things will never be the same. It was time for Brandi to move on.
Meanwhile, I have updated some of the photos on my author website to better indicate settings of future stories.
The RS retrieved some once lost files for me, so when the weather becomes intolerably hot, I’ll likely be back at the keyboard in between painting. I do have new art projects under way, but even those are put on hold for a while.
Finally, we both got our shots and the grandkids will be visiting this week. We can have company again. Whoo-hoo!!!
If you visit my new website, Art Way Place, where paradise dreams come true, make sure to SUBSCRIBE to follow my art journey and receive discount codes. Currently, there is a discount code for subscribers through spring for 20% off on the “Inspired Art” category. Other subscriber discounts, gifts and deals will be announced in the monthly newsletter, along with more insider information.
I’ll be glad when we can get out and do art shows again. Maybe next year’s snowbird season.
“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
John Muir
Where the mountains meet the sky is undiscernible in the Great Smokey Mountains at certain times of the year. White mist crawls through the trees like a playful kitten, slinking around hill and dale. As you walk along the trails, it wets your face until the drops form tears rolling down your face. They are cooler than the ones you cry. As you look toward the heavens all you can see are shadows of trees and swirls of smokey gray. Always keep your chin up and watch the dips and peaks of the crown, else you’ll be lost.
I had a deep love for trees in my youth. I have a cousin who promised to build me a treehouse when he returned from military service, but that didn’t happen. We would walk and climb over treefalls as we tromped Grandmother’s woods, exploring for insects in amber, colorful mushrooms, or other fungi. Chided by the other cousins and siblings for being alone together at dusk, we shrugged it off and made plans for the next day.
Another cousin and I would climb to the tip-top of white pines, 30-40 feet off the ground, and lean deeply in order to make the treetops sway until we could reach out and grab branches from each other’s tree and switch trees in mid-air. If my grandparents or uncle had seen us do that, we would still be doing time. I’ve probably climbed more trees than I have walked trails.
When I saw Feliks’s foggy forest painting, I knew I had to give it a go. Painting fog and mist is tricky. The difficulty is not so much painting the various light and dark shades that go in the background as it is getting the lighter shades for things that are in the mist and darker shades for things out of the mist. It was a fun tutorial that brought back fond memories. I haven’t varnished this one yet because I still have some detail work to finish.
Misty Mountain Forest 16X20 acrylics on gallery wrapped canvas Inspired by ColorByFeliks
“The most amazing thing to me about the sea is the tide.”
John Dyer
Next is one of my first (actually #6) originals. This one is painted from a reference photo. The photograph, Biscayne Bay, was taken by my friend, Armando Colls, who is a professional photographer in Miami. His gorgeous seascapes hang in high-end hotels in the area. This image is unlike most of his works. He often shows a vast sky over a thin beach with a special feature, a piece of driftwood, the underside of a pier, an odd lone tree, a shell. Maybe that’s what caught my eye on this one. It’s different. I love the natural mix of ununiform clouds. It moved me emotionally, committing me to paint. It’s an image of genuine beauty found in the shabbiness of the shoreline at low tide.
Tidal pools are rich with small sea life captured in the arms of the earth. Approached with wonder, beautiful shells lay bare. Tiny crustaceans scurry around when you step into the water. Little fiddler crabs dance across your barefoot toes, tickling sensations up your legs. Mollusks only big enough to be on a bird’s diet burrow deeper. As a small child, some of my most glorious moments were spent in the panhandle of Florida during our vacations, where these water pockets are found all along the back bays. We could rarely afford the beachier hotel suites on the sands, but found a world of joy in exploring these tidal pools that know every secret of the sea. On a breezy day, you can enjoy them without the biting bugs.
There seems to be a part of all creatives that is trapped in the tidal pool only to possibly be freed when the waters rise. For me, that time is when I am alone for extended periods that allow for introspection and deep thought in solitude. For others, the waters rise when they are around jovial friends and loved ones in celebration. Either way, creativity ebbs and flows. Nothing is constant.
Tidal Pool 11X14 acrylics on gallery wrapped canvas Original
Aside from painting pictures, I have been creating flower pots out of hypertufa slurry soaked fabrics. I drape the fabrics over an old, cheap, plastic pot used as a mold. I’ve unmolded them, but they remain to be painted. I’m about halfway through that project but I’ve made much progress this year. Last year, I had to stop working on them because it simply got too hot to continue working outside. My hope is to create some pots that appear as columns of coral in my little fantasy ocean-themed garden xeriscape.
I’ve been updating my website, also.
Since we moved from Orlando to the islands, I decided it was fitting to include more island images so I put out a call to local photographers. Jon Hunt, Ron Mayhew, and Martha Huard stepped up and offered some gorgeous pics. I only have one-time use though, so you’ll have to view them here.
Upon attempting this, I discovered just how outdated the technical aspects of my website were so that that sent me off down the pathway to cyber hell, but, as usual, the RS came to the rescue, and now I am set up with a coaching service to establish an artist site in addition to my author site. I’m hoping to get that acomplished within the next month, or so.
I’ve also begun working with Berthold Gambrel, Mark Paxson, and Audrey Driscoll at Writers Supporting Writers. In addition to our posts, we have video chats about writing. So, you can see more of me than I ever thought I would want you to. Ha! Seriously, if we can offer any morsel of helpful information to struggling writers, every second is worth it. So far, I have only participated in one chat, but the next is scheduled for the 20th, or shortly thereafter. We might even bring up some mistakes we’ve made.
How about you? When are you feeling your creativity most?
Are you affected by weather or tides? I am. The high tide makes me feel more alive. Rainy weather moves me to write. Sunny weather moves me to paint.
Are you living in a place where you can work outdoors in winter? I can’t in summers here.
There was a time when many people responded to every blog post that I published. I don’t know what happened to all those people. Not many come around anymore. I miss the interaction with friends, although I understand many aren’t even blogging anymore. I’m trying to teach my computer how to recognize my voice. It is not an easy thing to do. Editing seems even more difficult. Apparently, it understands short commands better than long sentences or single words. This post may be a little bit choppy.
Although my life has not changed dramatically since the Great Isolation began, thoughts and questions have come up from beneath the surface. What would my life be like without my husband? Could I approach the transition into deathlessness with the resolution required to go peacefully? How would my children and grandchildren remember me? Life is shorter than we can fathom in the greater scope of things. There is so much I want to accomplish and I’m uncertain if there is enough energy left in me or time left on this planet to get it all done. I suppose these thoughts have always been with me, but I’ve been less acutely aware. There’s really no fear, just quiet contemplation.
In this Great Isolation, I am learning so much about myself relative to my environment. For example, when the tide is going out, or when it is low, there is a sense of tension and a feeling of anxiety. When the tide is coming in, or high, there is a sense of calm and a feeling of ease. The high tide is brimming with sea life. Manatees, rays, dolphins, and all manner of fish coming into the canal bring it to life. There is a soul connection with these creatures who roam the waterways. Along with the emotional sensitivity to the action of the water and the life within it, I feel a strong sense of spiritual freedom in the vastness of the sky. The constantly evolving colors and clouds are like an artist’s canvas under the brush. There is a sacred connection to the world around me.
I haven’t been painting much this year, at least not on canvas. Here is one painting that I did for my stepson:
11X14 acrylic on gallery wrapped pro canvas “West Somerset Railway” original
This is a train that he rode in England when he was a child. The steam and tiny lettering on the plaque were the most challenging parts. It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but I did not have it ready. He returned from the Bahamas at the beginning of this pandemic and we haven’t been able to visit. I have some ideas for new paintings that I have not committed to. Below is a little painting that I gifted to our local diner. I hope they manage to reopen after the governor gives the green light. Most restaurants have continued with take-out and delivery, but The Perfect Cup was struggling under new management before this all went down. We’ll have to wait and see.
8X10 acrylic on student grade canvas (I framed this in a black floater frame) “The Perfect Cup” inspired by The Art Sherpa
Lately, I have been engaged in other artistic endeavors. I’m making draped flower pots out of fabrics that have been saturated in a concrete mixture and making art stones from molded Reddi-Set mortar. Mandalas and other designs are painted on the stones. After the stones are painted, I coat them with epoxy or resin to make them shiny and give them protection. These projects keep my hands and mind busy. The flower pots and stones are for my garden space. The edging for the garden border will be done with reclaimed, painted ceramic roofing tiles. We have not started the edging project yet, because the RS is re-wiring his brother’s boat.
I may get back to writing someday but, for now, I am content with visual and tangible art. Currently, I’m beta reading a book for an author friend. I’ll tell you more about that later.
Are you writing? Has this pandemic with its great isolation inspired your creativity, or have you been working? Or both?
Several years ago, we would come to fish on the west coast of Florida and the waters were clear with visibility to nearly 20 feet deep. Now, you can only find patches where visibility is four or five feet down. We fished the seagrass flats and caught sea trout in abundance. Now, the seagrasses, along with the many creatures who called them home, are gone, including most of the trout. A friend says when she came to Matlacha ten years ago, she could drop in a bucket and pull it out to find little crabs, tiny seahorses, and a multitude of small sea plants. Now, you’re lucky to get clear water to fill a five-gallon bucket, and certainly won’t year-round in many places around Ft. Myers.
Nestle is trying to bargain to pull billions of gallons of water from Ginnie Springs in north Florida. Nestle states, “At Nestlé Waters, our business depends on the quality and sustainability of the water we collect. It would make absolutely no sense to invest millions of dollars into our local operations just to deplete the natural resources on which our business relies. It would undermine the success of our business and go against every value we hold as a people, as Floridians, and as a company.” But their history begs to differ. From California to Michigan, to Maine, to Florida they have ruined or are in the process of ruining eco-systems and aquifers around the nation. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-fight-over-water-how-nestle-dries-up-us-creeks-to-sell-water-in-plastic-bottles.
Ginnie Springs crystal clear spring waters
Developers, like James Finch in Panama City, and others in SWFL, destroy acres of environmentally sensitive property, pay the fines as, “The cost of doing business,” with NO ACCEPTABLE RESTITUTION.
There is a new movement, Called Rights of Nature that I want all of my friends, particularly my Florida friends, to know about because it will ultimately affect you personally in some way. Back in the day, we so-called Flower Children and Hippies protested and fought hard to get clean water, clean air, and other anti-pollution protections in place. There are so many of us Boomers that are being disrespected nowadays, and if you look with consideration at how the environment was back in the late sixties and early seventies as compared to the eighties and nineties, you will see that we were highly successful. But things have gotten worse in recent years because these laws have been abused and quantitative limits on pollution were set which have been adjusted in favor of the polluting industries and corporations and their development.
January 21, 2010, a United States Supreme Court case concerning campaign finance was decided. The ruling effectively freed corporations to spend money on electioneering communications and to directly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates (ie. Lobby). Citizens United basically gives corporate personhood. Corporate personhood is the legal notion that a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In a series of decisions over the past 40 years, the Supreme Court has radically expanded constitutional rights for corporations.
Rights of Nature is the recognition and honoring that Nature has rights. It is the recognition that our ecosystems – including trees, oceans, animals, and mountains – have rights just as human beings have rights. … Nonetheless, for millennia legal systems around the world have treated land and nature as “property”.
Ecuador is the first country to recognize the Rights of Nature in its Constitution. Rights of Nature laws enable people, communities, and ecosystems themselves to defend and enforce such rights. Without the ability to do so, those ecosystems would be destroyed. Clean water is vital to life. All life, including ours.
On Saturday, the Florida Democratic Party approved a new party platform which includes the Rights of Nature. This is believed to be the first time such a provision has been included in a state political party platform in the United States.
The platform reads:
We resolve to adequately protect our waters, support communities’ rights in reclaiming home rule authority and recognizing and protecting the inherent rights of nature…
Roseate Spoonbills in Big Cypress Conservation Area
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is spearheading the global advancement of the Rights of Nature through support for the increasing number of communities defending the rights of nature. You can read about their work in the USA and abroad here: https://celdf.org/advancing-community-rights/rights-of-nature/.
Laws recognizing the rights of nature thus change the status of natural communities and ecosystems to being recognized as rights-bearing entities with rights that can be enforced by people, governments, and communities. Just as corporations (and developers) have rights protected by Citizen’s United, Nature needs a right to defend itself. Or we need Citizen’s United overthrown, and our environmental policies and regulations protected and enforced. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem likely in the foreseeable future.
Our lawmakers are already passing preemptive laws designed to prevent the Rights of Nature movement. These laws – including the United States’ Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and similar state laws – legalize environmental harms by regulating how much pollution or destruction of nature can occur under law. Rather than preventing pollution and environmental destruction, these laws, instead, allow and permit it. In addition, under commonly understood terms of preemption, once these activities are legalized by federal or state governments, local governments are prohibited from banning them.
Laws recognizing rights for nature begin with a different premise – that ecosystems and natural communities have the right to exist and flourish, and people, communities and governments have the authority to defend those rights on behalf of those ecosystems and communities.
The following is from a WINK News article here near Matlacha in Ft. Myers:
“There have been several efforts to give legal rights to nature in Southwest Florida. But now, some lawmakers are trying to block the movement before it appears on your ballot.
The calm Caloosahatchee River is one of the 15 Florida waterways that people are fighting to give legal rights. Karl Deigerts (Matlacha Civic Association President,is among these people.
“If an inanimate corporation can have rights,” Deigert said, “then why cannot a living ecosystem full of life not have individual inalienable rights?”
Now, Deigert’s effort to bring the Caloosahatchee Bill of Rights to Lee County is facing a big challenge.
“We have people out there in Tallahassee working to keep nutrients flowing into this river,” Deigert said, “to prevent us from creating these protective laws.”
Two Florida lawmakers want to stop any effort to give nature legal “rights.”
“I take that as a compliment,” Chuck O’Neal said, “because apparently, this is so dangerous the thought of actually giving people the right to clean water.”
“Why would any representative preempt things that protect us and our health and our environment?” Deigert said.
Sen. Ben Albritton, who filled one of the bills, said to WINK News it handcuffs local governments and invites litigation. His full statement:
Handcuffs Local Governments – These proposals would restrict a local government’s ability to pass ordinances, adopt regulations, and issue permits that may implicate these “new” rights. This could include development approvals, zoning, land use controls, or infrastructure projects. This is not in the best interest of local communities.
Invites Litigation – These proposals will likely result in a significant increase in litigation by creating a private cause of action whereby any person can sue another person, business, or government if they “feel” their “rights” are being violated. There is no requirement for actual injury or any direct connection to bring a lawsuit, and the burden of proof is on the one being sued.
The risk to Business – These proposals would have a detrimental effect on Florida’s economy in general.
In addition, I don’t believe that elevating nature to the status of a human being is good for society. Our Constitution is meant to protect the rights of people, with no mention of “rights of nature”. To elevate any natural feature to the level of human beings simply diminishes the value of human life. (Yet, we protect corporations as if they were individual people.)
Unnecessary – These proposals are entirely unnecessary as Floridians already have ample opportunity under existing law to challenge activities or government actions they feel could or would result in harm to the environment.
This legislation that I have filed addressing these “rights of nature” proposals will preserve the ability of local governments to operate without the threat of overwhelming litigation, preserve the rights of Florida landowners (from large to homeowners) to rely on well-established permitting and environmental regulatory programs. These proposals will throw Florida’s current local government regulatory and permitting structure into turmoil, thus having a terribly negative impact on Florida’s economy.
“It’s not working,” Deigert said. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation today if our current system worked.”
Instead of trying to pass a nature bill of rights countywide, organizers in Lee County are focusing on getting it done municipality by municipality.”
This article is a prime example of politicians claiming to know the best interests of the people when clearly their interests lie with corporations and developers.
Doesn’t recognizing rights for nature just add an additional layer of regulation?
No. Current environmental regulatory structures are mostly about “permitting” certain harms to occur – acting more to legalize the activities of corporations and other business entities than to protect our natural and human communities. Laws recognizing the rights of nature empower communities to reject governmental actions that permit unwanted and damaging development to occur – by enabling communities to assert the rights of those ecosystems that would otherwise be destroyed. Although people have been talking about “sustainable development” for decades now, very little has been done to change the structure of law to actually achieve that goal. Laws recognizing the rights of nature finally codify the concept of sustainable development – disallowing those activities that would interfere with the functioning of those natural systems that support human and natural life.
The preemptive laws, like Florida SB1382- preempts and eliminates our Right to self-governance in the creation of a Bill of Rights for selected ecosystems that amend our local city and county charters elevating environmental legal protection to the highest level recognized in western law. This preemption is aimed at the entire State of Florida. According to Clean Water Act author Oliver Houck, “The Clean Water Act does not go far enough to protect us. We must add Rights of Nature law if we are to have true protections.” We can no longer afford to consider ourselves above nature but must recognize that we are a part of nature. Our water are in an emergency state of decline. From Florida’s first magnitude springs, to our estuaries, to our marine coastal waters, all Florida waters are now designated as “impacted”. Clean Waters are the backbone of Florida’s entire economy and must be at the forefront for consideration in every decision by our elected officials and every level. We can not delay remediation any longer and must seek a new paradigm for the most expedient and effective changes in our laws. Our current regulatory system has failed to protect us. We must break the fixed system. Rights of Nature laws are the path to change.
Draft, endorse and support local initiatives that recognize rights for nature in your municipality. For advice and counsel, contact the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund CELDF.org.
If you are an Awakening the Dreamer Symposium facilitator, include Rights of Nature in your symposium discussions. Include our letter-writing campaign as a way to be in action.
Support the work of the Global Alliance for Rights of Nature (GARN) financially. Every dollar, euro, or other currency makes a difference in expanding the recognition of Rights of Nature around the world. Thank you for your consideration and generosity! https://therightsofnature.org/
S.K. Nicholls 