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Public Lands Support American Families, Including Mine
Credit: Sabrina Rowe
When my wife and I adopted our son and daughter, it was not amusement parks that bonded us as a family in those early fragile days. It was public land—parks, rivers, forests, preserves, trails, fishing spots and campgrounds. Many of these places were purchased through efforts like the Florida Forever program. My loyalty in part to such programs comes from their loyalty to my family.
Our son and daughter were 8 and 10 years of age when our adoption was finalized. They are biologically brother and sister, and because of their age and being a sibling pair, our adoption was considered a high-risk adoption. That, coupled with the time they had spent in foster care and the deep abuse and neglect of their biological family, meant we had to find ways to bond right away and authentically to create a true family as quickly as we could.
Nature, love, extended family, friends, neighbors and our Church were all essential in the process. Nature no less so than the other strands of our community that held us together in the rough times.
Public lands offered a safe, neutral place for us to build a family. We could learn about new places and each other at the same time. We could find the beauty and wonder of nature as we discovered the beauty and wonder of each other. The deep bonds of community, our faith and the natural world saved us.
Our family immersed ourselves in Florida’s public lands. We went swimming in Juniper Springs in Ocala National Forest and at Manatee Springs State Park. We hiked Hillsborough River State Park. We paddled down the Withlacoochee River on the Nature Coast. We found secret fishing holes and shady places to sit and watch wildlife. Public lands became a vast and accessible resource that we could use to define our new family and create our own, new, better memories.
When you start a new family with kids who have experienced trauma and are 8 and 10, you realize you have no stories as a family yet. You must build them as you experience them and retell them as often as you can. As you weave together the layers of experience you deepen the bonds that you rely on in the challenging times. Time in nature as a family provides those stories, those memories, those common touchstones.
The truly amazing thing about those memories is that I can still visit these places. I can take my grandchildren there to form the deep and lasting memories I formed with my parents and grandparents, and with our son and daughter.
Public lands help us create a sense of place and help us connect past, present and future. They define what it means to create connections.
We would not have survived those early years without tipping over canoes, catching (or not catching) fish, long hikes, endless bugs, snakes, mud, biting crabs, jellyfish, and more. Challenges met and overcome as a family built memories, bonds, and resilience.
We would not have seen a nesting loggerhead sea turtle on a windswept beach in the dark of night perform what we considered a miracle without nature and public lands. We would not have seen magical pods of dolphins, manatees, all types of reptiles, birds, amphibians and mammals without time spent in nature. A night filled with fireflies still makes me smile today.
We took my granddaughters to Homosassa Springs State Park this weekend. They are 4 and 3 years of age. I suspect the ice cream, stuffed bears, and soda might have been their favorite parts, but we got to see snakes, birds, alligators, Florida Black Bears, Florida Panthers and manatees as a family, together. We saw huge schools of mullet, snook and jacks in crystal-clear waters. Nature, for another generation, helped us build family and memories.
At the end of the day, what we do and what we value matters. It is our contribution to eternity. It is our legacy. Supporting the National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf Program means supporting places that are essential to the future of my family. NWF supports places that supported me. Now I can give back to those natural wonders and seek their conservation. Nothing could matter more.
Joe Murphy is a native and lifelong Floridian who lives in Brooksville, Florida along the Nature Coast. He is a former Wildlife Policy Specialist for NWF’s Gulf Program. He contributes these blog posts as an NWF supporter and alumnus. You can follow Joe on Instagram @naturecoastjoe.
