The Wild Heart Of Florida: Florida Writers On Florida's Wildlands [Paperback]

Eighteen of Floridas best-loved writers here share with you their affection for Floridas wild side--the beautiful heart of a state under siege from development.

?Carl Hiaasen, Randy Wayne White, Al Burt, Patrick Smith, the late Archie Carr, and others evoke a Florida thick with pinewoods, alligators, and palmetto scrub; ribboned by miles of coast and dune; blessed with backcountry lakes, rivers, creeks, and springs. Strip malls and concrete cannot tame this wild Florida, but they can kill it. These essays offer passionate argument why that should not be allowed to happen.

?Coming from a variety of backgrounds--fiction, journalism, poetry, and environmental writing--the writers turn their talent to one thing they have in common--a love for Floridas natural beauty and a commitment to preserve it. Their essays--some old favorites, most appearing here for the first time--are both a celebration and a pointed reminder of what we stand to lose.

Many of the areas singled out (the Lake Wales Ridge, the Panhandles Topsail Hill, Goethe State Forest, and Tampas Brooker Creek) were purchased through Floridas Preservation 2000, one of the nations foremost land acquisition programs. All royalties from the book are being donated to the Florida chapter of The Nature Conservancy.

Printed on recycled paper with soy ink.

Jeff Ripple, natural history writer and photographer, is the author of five books of interpretive natural history, including Sea Turtles, Florida--The Natural Wonders, and Southwest Floridas Wetland Wilderness: Big Cypress Swamp and the Ten Thousand Islands (UPF, 1996). He lives in Gainesville, Florida.

Susan Cerulean, writer and biologist, is co-author of Florida Wildlife Viewing Guide. In 1997, the Governors Council for a Sustainable Florida honored her with an Individual Environmental Educator Award. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida.