Cone Ranch is a unique and extremely valuable asset belonging to the taxpayers of Hillsborough County. But it is threatened by a deal to allow the Florida Conservation and Environmental Group (FCEG) to sell it off at the very bottom of the real estate market. ...more

October 31, 2009

Walt Disney Studios is turning box-office cash from its nature documentary "Earth" into seed money to plant trees in the rain forest. ...more

April 29, 2009

I would like to report a crime; two crimes actually. The first is a decade of destruction to public property by the users of ATVs, Jeeps and trucks in the Henscratch and Leisure Lakes areas of the protected Lake Wales Ridge properties. ...more

March 6, 2009

As a charity that helps homeowners in a pinch, Lighthouse of Oakland County could use every penny it can collect as foreclosures and unemployment rise. But scratched from the 2009 calendar is its biggest fundraiser of the year, a black-tie dinner. ...more

January 2, 2009

It is not certain which environmental organization came up "Pave it or Save it," but I am beholden to them as it stirred my recollection of words to that effect, thrown as a challenge; "If you want to save that piece of wild land, buy it!" How many times have I heard that from local and other bureaucrats, and even a newspaper whose editorial staff must have been influenced by developers or big agriculture? ...more

August 13, 2008

Efforts to place on the 2008 ballot a property tax to help the county conserve environmentally sensitive lands appeared to be dead late Wednesday afternoon after its backers conceded to a county advisory commission that the worsening economy would dampen its support. ...more

August 1, 2008

Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Baptist and member of Prairie Lakes Church in Cedar Falls, Iowa, is a Capitol Hill expert on change in the tax-exempt arena. ...more

February 7, 2008

Florida scrub jay populations are declining along the Lake Wales Ridge and the rest of Central Florida, stated an official from environmental groups monitoring the threatened bird. According to a press release from The Nature Conservancy, a study revealed that scrub jay populations declined at 40 percent of the 15 "Jay Watch" sites on the ridge since they were first surveyed between 2002 and 2004. Two-thirds of the scrub jay populations at 26 other sites in the state also showed declining populations. ...more

January 28, 2008

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, served in the Iowa Legislature for 15 years before being elected to the U.S. House in 1974 and the U.S. Senate in 1980. A Baptist, his areas of focus are integrity of the charitable sector, alternative fuels, health care and agriculture. His work in bringing to light issues of concern has resulted in nonprofit groups undertaking significant reforms. Some of those organizations include the Nature Conservancy, the American Red Cross, United Way, and the Smithsonian Institution. ...more

November 6, 2007

I haven't heard or read such a load of "Codswallop" in years such as what journalist, Patrick Buchanan, wrote in the Oct. 26 issue of Highlands Today. Global warming isn't an extremist's point of view. Hasn't he heard of Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring?" People at that time were not aware of the effects of DDT on raptors' eggs, and as a result, ospreys, eagles, etc. were almost wiped out. For Mr. Buchanan to deign that global warming isn't happening, is kin to the ostrich's head in the sand (well, maybe I won't acknowledge it, then it won't happen.) He apparently has never read any Nature Conservancy, National Audubon Society magazines, or anything to do with the majority of what biologists, zoologists, ornithologists, etc. have been reporting for many years. ...more

November 2, 2007