As environment reporter Max Chesnes and I have reported on a series of public lands controversies in the state over the past year, we’ve encountered twists and turns we never expected. It all started last summer, when Max got a tip that the state was pursuing a plan to build golf courses, hotels, pickleball courts and more on state parks. We’ve written more than 35 stories since that fateful moment, chronicling not just that saga but also those that have come after. The latest chapter in this story, as you may know, was the proposed land swap involving the Guana River Wildlife Management Area in northeast Florida. Max and I reported last month that the state appeared poised to approve a trade, proposed by a recently created LLC, that would grant this private entity 600 acres of pristine public land in exchange for other parcels of unclear conservation value. The proposal has since been withdrawn in response to public backlash. But Max and I have continued to dig into who was really behind the proposal — beyond its ambiguous name, The Upland LLC. During that reporting, we heard something that all reporters dread: We were about to get scooped. “60 Minutes,” the CBS News program, had determined a way to prove the identity of the person behind The Upland LLC, we were told. So we dug in. Pretty quickly, the situation didn’t add up. I called several of our most plugged-in sources on this story, and all of them said they hadn’t heard anything about a “60 Minutes” piece. The only one who had was a charter fishing boat captain named Matt Chipperfield, who told us that “60 Minutes” had asked him to sit down for an interview for their story, though it kept getting rescheduled. Then Chipperfield told Max something that raised our suspicions even more: The supposed producer who’d contacted him delayed their interview because “60 Minutes” apparently got a sit-down with Gov. Ron DeSantis. I immediately had serious doubts that could be true. DeSantis famously isn’t a fan of the TV program. He held an entire news conference in 2021 with the sole purpose of bashing a “60 Minutes” story about him involving COVID-19 vaccines that even some Democrats said was flawed. DeSantis’ office confirmed that no recent interview with the CBS show took place. And “60 Minutes” told us they had no producer matching the name given to Chipperfield. Read more about this bizarre development, including what the person posing as a producer wanted to know from Chipperfield. And in other public lands news, a luxury golf developer at the center of a previous controversial land swap proposal has reversed course. Last year, Cabot Citrus Farms, a golf resort in Hernando County, asked the state for 324 acres of the Withlacoochee State Forest in exchange for timberland in another part of the state. Conservationists were outraged. The state gave an initial greenlight to Cabot before public pushback seemingly prompted the company to walk away from the deal. Last week, though, Max and I reported that Cabot is now pursuing a new deal with state officials — this time, to sell 340 acres of nearby forest land so it can be preserved. And it’s not asking for public lands in return. Read more details about the proposal, which would expand the same state forest Cabot would have previously shrunk. Stay tuned for more public lands stories. We’re still digging. One last environmental story before you go, that’s also good news for conservationists: The federal government announced a proposal to list Florida’s ghost orchid as an endangered species, which would grant it additional protections.
This story explains the yearslong effort that led to this point — plus why the flower has such a ghoulish name.
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1 comment:
Hip hip hooray for the Republican who stirred the bee's nest. Hip hip hooray for the Republican who saved the day. Just imagine what lengths they'll go to in order to distract people from growing wealth and income inequality and high prices in their states.
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