So here's the thing: you have a patch of shady beachfront in a town notorious for its sunshine and heat and you run the park system that takes care of this, the town's best beach. So what do you decide to do? Why, cut the trees down of course! It's as obvious as breathing if you run the State of Florida Park System.
The Park Service says the casuarina trees, also known as Australian pines, are an invasive species and have to go. This is the same argument California made in attempting to get rid of eucalyptus trees, imported from Australia to be used as fast growing wind breaks. Casuarina trees grow where other plants won't, but their needles are acidic and prevent undergrowth from sprouting and the pines propagate wildly when left to themselves. However at Fort Zachary they grow in an isolated stand and provide beautiful shade at the waterfront used by people on bicycles, on foot in cars and even riding motorcycles (imagine that!):
The arguments against the removal of the pines are made logically and concisely on the Real Key West Blog. The video convinced me the wholesale removal of the pines is unnecessary, expensive and generally a bad idea. For a long time I had been something of a fence sitter on the subject because I do like native vegetation, but the notion that the well developed pines should be hacked down at a cost of $275,000 with no replacement other than a gruesome cement Ramada seems absurd. The pines, non native though they may be,have their own beauty:
And they offer welcome shade:
The Park Service has removed trees around the food concession overlooking the beach and their modest native plantings sit out in the sun baking gently:
Visitors to Key West in winter love the sunshine we enjoy year round and they think nothing of baking on the beach fleshing out their tans, soon to be transported back among envious neighbors Up North:
The park is tucked away in a corner of the city at the entrance to the harbor and the roadway into the park is lined on one side by the Navy Base while the other side is now city property, soon to be developed since the navy handed over 33 waterfront acres to key West (those development proposals are a controversy all their own...).
I prefer the western end of the park, the area with least development with picnic tables littered all around under the trees. This where I prefer to take my lunch breaks:
But development is encroaching with the creation of paths and borders and plantings:
When it comes to cutting down the pine trees I favor a middle path, a compromise that wouldn't suit anyone I guess. I really don't see the need to immediately cut down the shade trees, as non native as they may be. I'd like to see the Park Service aggressively plant in the wide open space between the Fort and the waterfront. Thus far their efforts are not encouraging. No one wants to see the pines demolished to make way for this:
The destruction of the pines looks even more crazy when viewed from the middle of the open space, currently occupied by Sculpture Key West. The pine trees across the horizon make quite a statement:
I wonder what the Park Service is thinking. Actually I don't think the leadership
is thinking, if they were they wouldn't bring the Service into disrepute by cutting down a bunch of trees that actually serve a purpose, cost nothing and require no watering. As it is Fort Zachary Taylor is living proof our State is a lunatic asylum governed by the inmates.
