Environmental Protection
Information Strategies
The term environmental stewardship is a convenient way to describe the responsibility we have to the natural world around us. Environmental stewardship involves knowing our relationship to Florida�s environment and then taking appropriate action based on that knowledge.
Thus, the first step towards successful environmental planning is the creation of a more environmentally aware citizenry and government through information exchange. Various government agencies of Alachua County are currently working together to provide Alachua and its citizens information exchange strategies.
However, land stewardship isn�t only a government responsibility. No single government agency has the sole authority or resources required to provide complete protection for our natural resources. Participation by all of our citizens is imperative for environmental conservation.
Below are examples of such strategies.
Education and Outreach Strategies
Education and outreach is the most important natural resource protection strategy. The successful resolution of many threats to natural resources is dependent on the actions of an educated populace. Instilling an awareness of the impact of disruption to natural processes conveys the relationship between environmental quality and environmental protection. Education can nurture appreciation of Alachua County�s natural resources and bring about cooperation and voluntary actions to protect the environment. Therefore, it is our responsibility to inform students, citizens, and local leaders about the values, function, and protection needs of natural resources. The public must be informed about threatened resources. However, a positive message must also be delivered: we can still protect our resources if we work together.
As part of our commitment to environmental stewardship, we must provide Alachua County�s landowners the tools to protect natural resources. This includes disseminating and providing technical assistance on the implementation of best management practices (BMPs), for topics such as landscape fertilization, agriculture, silviculture, stormwater management, and golf course design and management. BMPs, when properly implemented, may provide effective protection without the need to implement new regulations.
Indicators Tracking Strategies
Effective conservation requires that we know what resources exist, where they are found, and in what condition. The identity and geographical distribution of water resources, natural communities and species, important agricultural soils and open spaces, become among the most important information needed for preservation efforts to succeed.
Indicators provide a glimpse of a bigger picture. They reveal whether our community, the economy, or the environment is going forward or backward, increasing or decreasing, improving or deteriorating, or staying the same. Knowing where we are, and where we are headed will reveal declining or improving trends.
Policy calls for the County to establish a comprehensive monitoring program using performance indicators to detect and document long term trends in environmental quality, to support research efforts, and to confirm the effectiveness of environmental protection efforts. The information gained from monitoring will help citizens, planners, and state and local government officials understand the impacts of our decisions on natural resources.
Not only must the indicators be identified and measured, they must be analyzed and reported annually. The goal is to have feedback on our policies and regulations, to identify areas that need improvement to ensure the meaningful protection of natural resources. Another goal is to integrate these indicators into a performance-based development review process, so that a development proposal does not go forward unless it meets minimal standards of sustainability.
Technological Strategies
Alachua County is attempting to respond to current trends in information technology through a management strategy that combines increased public access to information and services, increased internal efficiency, increased functionality of data, systematic data gathering and storage.
Increase public access: ACEPD recognizes the potential of the internet to change the way the public gathers environmental information, participates in environmental decision making and engages the services of environmental agencies. It is our goal to establish and continually refine the EPD�s internet website to provide ready public access to information including laws and regulations, general environmental problems and conditions, and opportunities to participate as environmental citizens.
More functional data storage and presentation: There is no shortage of data and information; providing useful and relevant information is the challenge. Improved document imaging systems have allowed a number of departments to better acquire and store certain forms of information while at the same time reduce paper records. Similarly, the use of GIS database systems that relate data to specific geographic areas allows for visual representation of data, making it easier and faster to ascertain the points of environmental interest.
