Five Choices to help Save Planet's Biodiversity

We must stride to fill our yards with wildflowers that use no chemicals, watering or $$$ wasting maintenance over non-native grasses that must use chemicals, water and $$$ wasting maintenance.

Let get something straight immediately. Humans are a big part of the
Earth's biodiversity. At the same time, us humans are the biggest cause for the historical and exponential decline in the planet's biodiversity we are now experiencing.

Here are five steps one can use in their own yard to help slow down this catastrophic decline in the Earth's biodiversity. These steps have been provided by the executive director of Florida's Marine Resources Council, Dr. Leesa Souto.
 

1. Add biodiversity to your yard — a place for butterflies, birds, and humans to thrive.
    
2. Stop using chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. These components are not only killing the quality of our drinking water, but also the waters of our lagoons, rivers, springs, lakes, bays, etc.
    
3. Plant native trees and wildflowers; and if you follow this step, it will make the first step easier.
4. Remove non-native plants and turf grasses. Not only will this improve the natural health of our yards, but it reduces the costs associated with the maintenance of your property.
5. Cultivate the dirt with worms and compost. How we treat our soil is fundamental to our success in improving our natural relationship with nature.
6. Release ladybugs in your yard. Enjoy you're visitors!

Create an environment in your yard with a healthy balance of native trees, plants and wildflowers, soil, clean water, native birds, insects and animals. All of this will add to a biodiversified future.

Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.

Thanks, Mom!

Mom was a strong woman who would
stand up to any man!

My mother was a tough woman, despite her stunning looks, hourglass figure, fiery red hair and mind- piercing green eyes. As a teenager, she raised a black bear from a cub and opened a turquoise jewelry shop in Cherokee, NC. An entrepreneur at heart, she established and ran Smith's Trading Post in Tampa for nearly forty years with both a steel fist and kid-like energy. Mom was a strong woman who would stand up to any man, but back in the day she paid a high price for this strength.

Once I watched her pick up a rifle to shoot a man. He was threatening to cut down a mammoth cypress tree growing between our lakefront properties (That's a completely different story.) There's no doubt she would have killed him if she thought she needed to save the tree. Not surprisingly, it was Mom who taught me the importance facets of nature and conservation.

The same year, 1963, after she successfully defended the cypress tree, I found an injured red-winged blackbird in the woods. We kept the bird in a cage hanging in an oak tree, nursing it back to good health. I'd talk to the bird, and I swear it would listen to me. One morning, it was time to release our feathered patient, but, unfortunately, instead of my little friend in the cage, there was a four-foot long red cornsnake with a large lump in its belly. It was a bummer; I wanted that snake dead, until Mom explained to me the way nature worked.

"There's a balance in nature, son that we humans don't always understand," she said.

I watched the snakes fixed eyes and slithering tongue closely as Mom opened the cage, releasing it up into the oak. Over time, my fear of snakes evaporated completely.

I've always had an innate ability to strike up a conversation with a stranger, and as a very young child they tell me I had no fear of anyone. However, what I fear now more than ever before, are human beings. Indulging in books like Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction and the mind expanding Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity has led me to believe human choice are the biggest problem we face today. If we humans (especially governments) don't start making wiser choices about how we live on this planet soon, I assure you the vast majority of us will not be having such a good time in the very near future.

We must stop abusing nature to further our human pleasures and material gains. We now are facing a time where we must make decisions based on how our actions affect the sustainability of biodiversity. I understand this will take time, and we don't have much time, but now is the time for a change!

Another time has come; Mom died on Christmas Eve 2012. I may have lost one of my greatest mentors, but the foundation in nature and conservation she gave me has continued to mentor me in many rich ways over the past years.

Thanks, Mom, I love you.




Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.

Don't Leave Your Legacy on the Back Shelf of Your Mind

Whether you realize it or not, we're all working on our own individual legacy. Yes, our paths may vary greatly, but the way we establish and reach our personal legacy is the same for each and every one of us. First, there's a thought, then the action on that thought, which becomes a habit with routine, and in turn, it becomes one's legacy. It is as simple as that; you're building your legacy through your life's action. With this said, you might wonder why we do the things we do? Is it simply because we are reacting to a stimulus? Usually it is.

When I decided to move ahead with the idea to paddle and camp the entire

The Paddling Team of
Rodney Smith and John Kumiski

length of the Indian River Lagoon (IRL) in an effort to raise awareness and educational funds with my great friend, Captain John Kumiski, it was in response to a stimulus. The stimulus was the declining health of the Indian River Lagoon. We thought about and considered this idea for almost  ten years before moving forward with it, but we didn't leave it on the on the back shelf of our minds forever.

As a writer, my mission is to provide my readers with entertaining, educational and enlightening ideas, focusing on using, and not abusing, our great outdoors. In the end, I'm comfortable with this legacy. I've also come to realize that we think we do our best, and our best varies from day-to-day and moment-to-moment. We do our best by keeping this in mind; the trick is to be honest with yourself.

Get more productive at polishing  your legacies by staying focus on beginning with the end in mind. It may take a little time to establish this direction, but it will be a worthwhile use of your time and effort. Do yourself a big favor, and don't fall into the human trap of leaving the important things on the back shelf of your mind.

Learn more about our IRL Paddle Adventure.

Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.

Taking the Next Step with your Writing

Basically the outdoors has been my niche.  

For the longest time I've written primarily on the outdoors genre focusing my pen towards topics like fishing, boating, camping and surfing. Oh yeah, I've dappled in other areas more often lately, like conservation, but basically the outdoors has been my niche.  

Recently I've taken a sharper, more critically inspection of my pen's aim. What I see is a need for a stronger focus on education advocacy. Take for instance, in my home state of Florida; the Department of Education celebrated Literacy Week in the middle of January, while the rest of the nation celebrated National Literacy Action late in January. Its surprising Florida is ahead on the celebration, but its educational system has lacked behind the vast majority of our nation's school systems for as long as it has been in existence. Wait a minute; I'm not blaming the teachers or anyone else.

Unfortunately, the one thing Florida politics pride themselves is the pace of our state's population expansion. They preach that the growth is Florida's only savior.  

When I was a boy Florida was ranked thirtieth in the nation in population, and very near the bottom of the heap in money spent on education. Today our state is ranked third in the nation population-wise, and we're still spending far less than the majority of other states on education. This disparaging statistic sickens me. Education is a big part of quality of life.

Recently I attended a Florida Writers Association's (FWA) winter conference in Bradenton. The FWA volunteers did a fine job of organizing and running this event, and overall the instructors did teach a wide variety of topics dealing with the craft of writing. The idea of attending the conference was generated on a desire to reach authors and expand my knowledge of writing. My objectives were reached in both categories.  

However, what I relearned from attending this conference is the value of mentors, and how each of us can reach new levels of understanding by teaching others what we have learned. When we mentor young readers and new writers, not only do we give back to our roots, but also we expand our circle of influence and increase our comprehension of the subjects we teach. 

For a better world, writers, get out there, sharpen your skills, share your knowledge with other writers and readers, and watch your world grow — then our quality of life expand.

Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.

Crossroads of the Indian River Lagoon — a Trip and a Memory!

The paddlers discuss their observations!

(This was an incredible trip. The Indian River Lagoon sights and sounds we experienced were amazing. What I learned was She, the Lagoon, has given us so much, and now I question what have we given her in return for her copious treasures. She has given us great memories. She has given us bountiful seafood. She has given us trophy catches, She has given many of us so many reasons to live. Now it is time anglers stand up for the her. It is time we stand up for our environment. It is time we stop taking from her, and give a little back to her.)

A sterling and copious moon illuminates the vast and lucid sky above the Indian River Lagoon. We’re at the Crossroads, near the St. Lucie Inlet; behind us is Long Island, and in front sits Rocky Point. It’s here, every day for thousands of years, the Lagoon’s confluences have mixed with the north and south forks of the St. Lucie River and the Atlantic Ocean. It is from here, lying in my sleeping bag on top of Jim Moir's boat dock, our host, and this year's winner of the Disney Conservationist of the Year Award, that I contemplate the future of America's richest estuary.

A group of us have paddled together over 170 miles (New Smyrna Beach to Jupiter Inlet), camping on numerous spoil islands and shorelines, and eating fish from her waters along the way. Traveling eight-to-ten miles a day has set the pace needed for us to clearly see her dynamic changes and to better understand her constant routine.

Maybe the Indian River Lagoon hasn't changed so much since the white man first sailed and paddled down her shores. In 1884, James Alexander Henshall, author of Camping and Cruising in Florida, wrote of the mighty gales which could chop and discombobulate her shallow waters, wreaking hell and havoc with paddlers and sailors alike, within the blink of a blind mullet's eye. On the IRL Paddle Adventure we experienced her gales, and they taught us the winds and tides still rule. Henshall also wrote about collecting driftwood for campfires and cooking; we did the same to warm our souls and soles on her sandy beaches. Together we found that like a hundred years ago, the sunsets and moonrises gracing her horizon can take your breath away, and raccoons and rats patrolling her shorelines can carry away your provisions in a heartbeat, if given the proper chance.

Take my word for it, after paddling and camping along her entire length, I want to believe not so much has changed here along this majestic and wondrous IRL coast during the past hundred years or so. Yet, despite these observations, there is less seagrass, crabs, shrimp, gamefish, forage fish, turtles, bottle-nose dolphin, waterfowl, and filter feeders like oysters, clams, sea squirts, menhaden, etc. I dearly want to believe she's the same girl she once was, (the one I fell in love with some forty years ago) regardless if there are more people, homes, condos, businesses, roads, lawns, lights, ditches, causeways, spillways, byways, algae, bacteria, sea walls and pollution connecting to her.

A hundred years ago, an early outdoor photojournalist, St. George Rathbone, wrote of his pilgrimage to Florida, where he encountered endless beds of oysters, massive schools of game fish and mats of seagrass spanning the Lagoon's girth, so thick they restricted his vessel’s passage. Today this is not the case.

On this clear moonlit night, Jim told me it will take courage to make the right decision as to which way we will head now that we've both physically and spiritually reached our crossroads.

As we’ve paddled her length, and the more I’ve seen of her, the more I see her as our ultimate connection between nature and humankind, as I witness her biodiversity dwindle. In my eyes the time has come; our nation's greatest lagoon is sick. She's very ill, slowly dying a death of a thousand cuts. She has been injected with fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides and many other poisons; diked by seawalls, causeways, fences, rocks, rubble, etc. and permanently altered by dredges, power plants, boat wakes, fences, impoundments, climate change, front end loaders, chainsaws, dynamite, cranes, jetties, docks, piers, ports, locks, and so forth.

The negative results of these altercations are apparent to me. From south of Port St. John in the Indian River, through the Barge Canal and past Sykes Creek and the Banana River Lagoon, we saw little or no seagrass until we reached Vero Beach. Where we once saw spartina grass (under certain conditions spartina is the world's most prolific habitat; it produces a greater biomass than a rainforest per acre), mangroves and natural shorelines thirty years ago, we now see seawalls, docks, massive waterfront homes with bright green, chemically-enhanced lawns. Kudos to the folks who came up with naming Florida’s choice of coastal sod, St. Augustine; it sounds so Floridian.

She's our nation's greatest refuge for fish, birds and marine mammals. She’s our nation's greatest marine nursery, a sanctuary for numerous protected species, and thousands of other animal, fish and plant species. To think we would all stand by and assist in her death is unthinkably depressing to me.

After reading this, hopefully you're asking yourself what needs to be corrected to save her, and what chances does she have to survive?

Today I read about the decline of our planet's biodiversity from Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, “Most disturbing of all, as a result of all these actions taken together, we are disrupting what are called ‘ecosystem services,’ that is, the various ways that organisms, and the sum total of their interactions with each other and with the environments in which they live, function to keep all life on this planet, including human life, alive.”  Despite her terrible decline, the Indian River Lagoon still provides one of the world's greatest ecosystem services.

Here's what we need to do if we want to save her. Collectively, we must become more aware of our choices, and how these choices we make on land directly influence the health of our watershed. We must limit our concern for ourselves, and increase our concern for our environment if we want to survive the next century.

Unfortunately, some would say, we the people are probably too cheap, greedy and under-educated to save her. You can call it foolishness or whatever you wish, but I have an underlying hope, or a serious faith, that things can change in a positive way and we the people can conquer ourselves, and in the future improve our relationship with our planet. Let's hope so, ‘cause she's hurting.

Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.

Melbourne 31 Miles, Beaches 33 Miles

Platts Supermarket - 1955; compliments of www.westmelbourne.org.

The day's first brilliant sun rays blasted directly under the closed lids of my weary eyes. It took me seconds to realize why. We were heading dead east on old Highway 192 past Yeehaw Junction where a sign read Melbourne 31 Miles, Beaches 33 Miles. The sunlight's cutting light had finally edged its way under the two surfboards that had been shading my naked eyes. 

My neck was stiff and sore as hell. My flippin’ empty belly managed to grab the majority of my immediate, painful attention as I caught a lingering scent of siphoned gas from the neck of my shirt. Inherently, the sun's light dazed me. But it was the unique combination of gas vapors and Led Zeppelin's “Stairway to Heaven” slapping my nose and ears that directed my eyes to the front seat where Chris and Lester's heads moved in marvelous unison. Occasionally their heads thankfully blocked the sun's morning glare.   

Back then, Highway 192 was an empty two-lane highway winding through a part of Florida that hadn't changed much since the beginning of the last ice age. Bordered by the thick and lively Florida fauna and flora, the road's path was dominated by ancient live oaks dressed in resurrection ferns, Spanish moss and cypress trees punctuated in red orchids. 

This part of 192 was a lonely road slicing the St. John’s River south to north and inhabited only by cow pastures and Camp Holly. Compared to today's standards, very little stood between the west shore of the Indian River Lagoon and Yeehaw Junction, except for a solo traffic light stopping traffic at U.S. 1 and New Heaven in downtown Melbourne.

Much has changed since the mid-‘70s. Old Highway 192 has doubled its number of lanes, and there's much more traffic moving across it back and forth, and far more houses springing up along its course. But two things have not changed; those signs still read Melbourne 31 Miles, Beaches 33 Miles—and I still love surfing!

Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.

Caught A Moment

The ocean reef at the beach in Satellite Beach, Florida

I finally caught a moment here on my iPad between preparing our fall garden and catching a few waves. These are the places, the ocean and land, where I get my inspiration. 

A hint of fall has arrived to parts of the Indian River Lagoon Coast. Yesterday at the Melbourne International Airport the high/low temperatures were 84/68 degrees, and we had no rain. In this part of the central IRL coast we're about six inches below normal.

A solid three- to four-foot northeast ground swell has provided good surf with long, glassy rides. Fast-moving tight schools of mullet and menhaden are attracting many of the best inshore species to our beaches. Snook, king mackerel, sharks, tarpon, barracuda and bluefish are catchable within a hundred yards of the shore.

It's impossible to fully predict the digital interactive wave before us. But after reading a Florida Catholic article on iPads in schools and then listening to an NPR report on the same subject, one thing is for sure; we may see its crest. The possibilities for today's authors are wide open in this new world of technology.

Rodney Smith, CEO of Little Pond Publishing;and author of Catching Made Easy and Enjoying Life on the Indian River Lagoon is a visionary and community leader who like to share his tales. Download these books digitally on Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble by searching "Rodney Smith+Name of book"; or order the soft-covered books online!  See all of Rodney's upcoming events and exploits at www.rodneysmithmedia.com.