3 March 2003

We are alarmed by the proposal to push a road through the Campus Natural Area and Teaching Laboratory (NATL), and deeply saddened that the proposal is supported by people whom we thought had the best interests of our students and environment in mind. Among the fragments of natural ecosystems in the City of Gainesville, and especially in the vicinity of the University of Florida, the NATL is one of the best. We know this because we have conducted an exhaustive survey of its flora, and have established permanent plots in which the dynamics of its arboreal populations are being monitored.

The area to be directly affected by the proposed road is particularly rich in plant species that are not abundant in this area. On the western boundary in the direct impact zone there are the only remnant populations of a dozen or more pine savanna species once abundant in north central Florida. Further eastwards along the proposed road corridor, the forest gradually becomes more dominated by hardwoods, including some magnificent specimens of swamp chestnut oak (Quercus michauxii, also known as basket oak) growing amongst bluestem palms (Sabal minor) on ground that is punctuated with abundant sinkholes.

We expect that the combined direct and indirect impacts of the proposed road will lead to the extirpation of about 20 species of plants, loss of several plots we have been monitoring for more than five years, and the destruction of unique examples of ecosystems that are now rare due mostly to rampant development unfettered by environmental concerns. Facilitation of new commercial development, if this is a reasonable objective, simply must not be at the expense of the one-of-a-kind and irreplaceable Campus Natural Area and Teaching Laboratory. And if any portion of the heavily utilized research and training facility is important, it is exactly where the new road is supposed to go.

Francis E. Putz, Professor
Walter Judd, Professor
Kaoru Kitajima, Assistant Professor