The News- Press Ft. Myers/Naples May 23, 2003
Saving nature
Part of a documentary for PBS about aquatic preserves is being shot in Southwest Florida. World-renowned Everglades photographer Clyde Butcher helps explain the preserves’ importance.
By MARY WOZNIAK, mwozniak@news-press.com
Filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus has his eye on what he thinks will make a wonderful shot — a billowing cloud formation boiling up from the hazy horizon, at the mouth of the Estero River.
Filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus of Live Oak Production Group films Clyde Butcher as he prepares to photograph a saw palmetto on the bank of the Estero River. Butcher and Stoltzfus are producing a documentary about Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve along with 11 other preserves throughout the state. AMANDA INSCORE/news-press.com
Stoltzfus has just entered the river by boat from the serene waters of Estero Bay, in search of footage to use in a film documentary on Florida’s aquatic preserves.
With him at the wheel of his bulky but serviceable little boat is Clyde Butcher, a photographer known internationally for his black-and-white images of the Everglades and other endangered natural areas in the world.
Butcher has been chosen by the state Department of Environmental Protection to host this documentary, which will focus on 12 of the state’s 41 aquatic preserves. He and Stoltzfus, of Live Oak Production Group near Tallahassee, will film through early October, and the show will air in February 2004.
Liquid parks
The special is meant to raise people’s awareness of aquatic preserves, how they are changed by humans, and how they can be protected, said Katherine Andrews, director of Coastal and Aquatic Preserves for the state DEP.
Aquatic preserves are defined by the DEP as “submerged lands of exceptional beauty which are to be maintained in their natural or existing conditions.”
All but four of the 41 preserves are found on Florida’s coast in estuaries (where salt water and fresh water mix). Estero Bay is the oldest, established in 1966.
“These are kind of our liquid version of parks,” Andrews said. “We want people to enjoy them in a sustainable way.”
Yet people use them every day without being aware of what they are and how they function, she said.
Butcher was chosen to host the special because of his name recognition and fame as a photographer. “Clyde is a remarkable artist, and we’re thrilled that he wanted to do this project,” Andrews said.
Butcher will also photograph images for a new book on Florida’s aquatic preserves during filming.
The state DEP, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration are paying for the film.
Environmental stepchild
Butcher said he agreed to the project because the topic is so important.
Aquatic preserves are probably the stepchild among the state’s environmental agencies, Butcher said. “This story has never been told — the story of aquatic preserves and what they’ve been to us.”
Andrews said it was fair to say that the preserves have suffered from a lack of attention due to lack of awareness.
The Florida Aquatic Preserve act, which pulled all the existing preserves under a standard set of management rules, was passed in 1975. But even some state legislators don’t know about the preserves, Andrews said.
The documentary and Butcher’s book are meant to change that.
Chasing a cloud
On the water, Butcher turns the boat’s wheel to the right and to the left playfully, pretending he is about to charge the cloud like a bull.
Stoltzfus adjusts his camera on a tripod that is balanced on the boat’s deck.
Butcher may be more used to framing scenes behind the lens of his own large-format camera than acting as a production assistant.
But when putting together an hour-long documentary involves five months of shooting on a shoestring budget, everybody wears more than one hat.
The light and cloud formation change by the minute, but if Butcher steers straight ahead slowly, they should be able to capture the moment.
Stoltzfus holds up his right hand to show he is filming, and Butcher steers the boat steadily toward the cloud.
Suddenly a pontoon boat rounds a sharp bend in the river and heads straight for Stoltzfus’ camera.
“Oh, what is that!” Stoltzfus exclaims in frustration, waving the boat to the right.
The boat moves — eventually.
The passengers — a woman in a leopard bikini and a man in swimming trunks with a backward baseball cap — don’t smile as they speed by.
Stoltzfus’ boat rocks uneasily in their wake.
The shot is ruined.
“Oh well,” Stoltzfus says with a resigned grin and starts to set the camera up again.
Butcher turns the boat around for a second take.
Human impact
The few moments of unintended human interference seem to be a microcosm for the making of the documentary.
People often don’t realize the impact human action has on the delicate estuary ecosystems, Andrews said.
They are drawn to aquatic preserves because of their beauty and use them for boating, swimming, fishing and other activities.
They eat the fish and shellfish caught recreationally and commercially in estuary waters, which are often called the nurseries of the sea. They try to build homes as close as possible for a better quality of life.
But estuary waters bear the burden of use by an ever-expanding population, particularly from unsafe boating practices and runoff from development, Andrews said.
Seagrass, which grows in the shallow water of the aquatic preserves, is damaged when boat motor prop guards scrape it up in shallow water, said Stephanie MacKenzie, an environmental specialist with the Estero Bay preserve.
Seagrasses are essential to estuaries because they:
• Provide oxygen
• Help maintain water clarity
• Serve as a spawning ground for some fish and shellfish species
• Provide homes for organisms that live among their leaves and root systems
• Provide food for endangered manatees
“People create scars in the sea bed, or get stuck and turn on the engine full-blast and have a blowout, creating a huge scar in the seagrass,” MacKenzie said. The scar can take years to grow back, she said.
Mangroves are also an important part of the preserve habitat. They provide nesting areas and protection for shore birds and other marine life, stopping erosion, filtering runoff and providing a buffer from storms.
“What’s going on in the land does have an effect on what’s going on in our coastal waters,” Andrews said. “People think about the land and people think about the water. I would like to start erasing that line in people’s heads. It all fits together.”
“You have to balance the needs of people in the area and balance the needs of the environment, which is why people move here in the first place,” MacKenzie said.
PRESERVES BEING FILMED
1. St. Joseph Bay Aquatic Preserve, Port St. Joe, in the Panhandle
2. Rainbow Springs Aquatic Preserve, Ocala
3. St. Martin’s Marsh Aquatic Preserve, Crystal River
4. Charlotte Harbor Coastal and Aquatic Managed Area (CAMA) sites, Punta Gorda area, Charlotte County:
• Cape Haze Aquatic Preserve
• Gasparilla Sound Aquatic Preserve
• Lemon Bay Aquatic Preserve
• Matlacha Pass Aquatic Preserve
• Pine Island Sound Aquatic Preserve
5. Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve, Estero
6. Cape Romano-Ten Thousand Island Aquatic Preserve/Rookery Bay Reserve, Collier County
7. Loxahatchee River-Lake Worth Creek Aquatic Preserve, West Palm Beach
8. Indian River-Vero Beach to Fort Pierce/Aquatic Preserve, Fort Pierce
9. Indian River-Malabar to Vero Beach Aquatic Preserve, Fellsmere
10. Mosquito Lagoon Aquatic Preserve, near Daytona
11. Wekiva River Aquatic Preserve, Orlando
12. Nassau River, St. John’s Marsh Aquatic Preserve, Jacksonville
WHAT’S NEXT
This week and next week, photographer Clyde Butcher and filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus will film in the Charlotte Harbor Coastal and Aquatic Managed Area, which includes Pine Island Sound and Matlacha Pass aquatic preserves.
Charlotte Harbor is unique in that it is a large, relatively undisturbed estuary, said Gary Litton, environmental administrator for the Southwest Region Coastal and Aquatic Managed Area, which includes the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Collier County, Charlotte Harbor and Tampa Bay in Hillsborough County.
“Charlotte Harbor is trying to sustain the productivity of its system as the population continues to grow there,” Litton said.
The state DEP is trying to start a baseline monitoring system for water quality in the estuaries.
“As the (population) pressures increase, we can hopefully catch any trends early before they turn to crises,” Andrews said.
DIFFERENT GOALS
Clyde Butcher and Elam Stoltzfus tie up their little boat at a canoe launch at a bend in the Estero River.
They agree the setting and light look promising for a good shoot. Stoltzfus wants movement; Butcher, absolute stillness.
The men get out with their respective camera gear.
Butcher takes a homemade 5-by-7, 38-millimeter camera he has dubbed the Clyde-a-Wide, and shoots the river and the opposite bank from a bench.
Behind him, an armadillo rustles in brush around the base of a tree.
This is part of what is known as the buffer preserve of the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve. The preserve itself covers about 10,000 acres, including the Estero River and other tributaries that feed into Estero Bay, said Heather Stafford, preserve manager.
The buffer preserve is another 10,000 acres of land that the state has purchased around the estuary to buffer it from nearby upland development, she said.
This part of the buffer area features palm trees, palmetto shrubs and a walking trail.
Any runoff from development winds up being filtered through the buffer before it gets to the bay.
On the trail, Butcher finds a small palmetto shrub with one frond curled inward like an arthritic hand. He’s never seen anything like it.
“I think this is going to be an interesting — if nothing else an historical picture,” he said. This time, he uses his 1943 Deardorff, large-format camera.
Butcher spends the next two hours stooping, kneeling and lying next to the shrub, photographing in the subtropical heat.
Cruising along the river near the end of the day, the tops of the red stucco roofs from a nearby gated community can be seen in the distance.
Some of the homes there probably approach $3 million in value — the entire yearly budget for all of the state’s 41 aquatic preserves.
Saving nature
Part of a documentary for PBS about aquatic preserves is being shot in Southwest Florida. World-renowned Everglades photographer Clyde Butcher helps explain the preserves’ importance.
By MARY WOZNIAK, mwozniak@news-press.com
Filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus has his eye on what he thinks will make a wonderful shot — a billowing cloud formation boiling up from the hazy horizon, at the mouth of the Estero River.
Filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus of Live Oak Production Group films Clyde Butcher as he prepares to photograph a saw palmetto on the bank of the Estero River. Butcher and Stoltzfus are producing a documentary about Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve along with 11 other preserves throughout the state. AMANDA INSCORE/news-press.com
Stoltzfus has just entered the river by boat from the serene waters of Estero Bay, in search of footage to use in a film documentary on Florida’s aquatic preserves.
With him at the wheel of his bulky but serviceable little boat is Clyde Butcher, a photographer known internationally for his black-and-white images of the Everglades and other endangered natural areas in the world.
Butcher has been chosen by the state Department of Environmental Protection to host this documentary, which will focus on 12 of the state’s 41 aquatic preserves. He and Stoltzfus, of Live Oak Production Group near Tallahassee, will film through early October, and the show will air in February 2004.
Liquid parks
The special is meant to raise people’s awareness of aquatic preserves, how they are changed by humans, and how they can be protected, said Katherine Andrews, director of Coastal and Aquatic Preserves for the state DEP.
Aquatic preserves are defined by the DEP as “submerged lands of exceptional beauty which are to be maintained in their natural or existing conditions.”
All but four of the 41 preserves are found on Florida’s coast in estuaries (where salt water and fresh water mix). Estero Bay is the oldest, established in 1966.
“These are kind of our liquid version of parks,” Andrews said. “We want people to enjoy them in a sustainable way.”
Yet people use them every day without being aware of what they are and how they function, she said.
Butcher was chosen to host the special because of his name recognition and fame as a photographer. “Clyde is a remarkable artist, and we’re thrilled that he wanted to do this project,” Andrews said.
Butcher will also photograph images for a new book on Florida’s aquatic preserves during filming.
The state DEP, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration are paying for the film.
Environmental stepchild
Butcher said he agreed to the project because the topic is so important.
Aquatic preserves are probably the stepchild among the state’s environmental agencies, Butcher said. “This story has never been told — the story of aquatic preserves and what they’ve been to us.”
Andrews said it was fair to say that the preserves have suffered from a lack of attention due to lack of awareness.
The Florida Aquatic Preserve act, which pulled all the existing preserves under a standard set of management rules, was passed in 1975. But even some state legislators don’t know about the preserves, Andrews said.
The documentary and Butcher’s book are meant to change that.
Chasing a cloud
On the water, Butcher turns the boat’s wheel to the right and to the left playfully, pretending he is about to charge the cloud like a bull.
Stoltzfus adjusts his camera on a tripod that is balanced on the boat’s deck.
Butcher may be more used to framing scenes behind the lens of his own large-format camera than acting as a production assistant.
But when putting together an hour-long documentary involves five months of shooting on a shoestring budget, everybody wears more than one hat.
The light and cloud formation change by the minute, but if Butcher steers straight ahead slowly, they should be able to capture the moment.
Stoltzfus holds up his right hand to show he is filming, and Butcher steers the boat steadily toward the cloud.
Suddenly a pontoon boat rounds a sharp bend in the river and heads straight for Stoltzfus’ camera.
“Oh, what is that!” Stoltzfus exclaims in frustration, waving the boat to the right.
The boat moves — eventually.
The passengers — a woman in a leopard bikini and a man in swimming trunks with a backward baseball cap — don’t smile as they speed by.
Stoltzfus’ boat rocks uneasily in their wake.
The shot is ruined.
“Oh well,” Stoltzfus says with a resigned grin and starts to set the camera up again.
Butcher turns the boat around for a second take.
Human impact
The few moments of unintended human interference seem to be a microcosm for the making of the documentary.
People often don’t realize the impact human action has on the delicate estuary ecosystems, Andrews said.
They are drawn to aquatic preserves because of their beauty and use them for boating, swimming, fishing and other activities.
They eat the fish and shellfish caught recreationally and commercially in estuary waters, which are often called the nurseries of the sea. They try to build homes as close as possible for a better quality of life.
But estuary waters bear the burden of use by an ever-expanding population, particularly from unsafe boating practices and runoff from development, Andrews said.
Seagrass, which grows in the shallow water of the aquatic preserves, is damaged when boat motor prop guards scrape it up in shallow water, said Stephanie MacKenzie, an environmental specialist with the Estero Bay preserve.
Seagrasses are essential to estuaries because they:
• Provide oxygen
• Help maintain water clarity
• Serve as a spawning ground for some fish and shellfish species
• Provide homes for organisms that live among their leaves and root systems
• Provide food for endangered manatees
“People create scars in the sea bed, or get stuck and turn on the engine full-blast and have a blowout, creating a huge scar in the seagrass,” MacKenzie said. The scar can take years to grow back, she said.
Mangroves are also an important part of the preserve habitat. They provide nesting areas and protection for shore birds and other marine life, stopping erosion, filtering runoff and providing a buffer from storms.
“What’s going on in the land does have an effect on what’s going on in our coastal waters,” Andrews said. “People think about the land and people think about the water. I would like to start erasing that line in people’s heads. It all fits together.”
“You have to balance the needs of people in the area and balance the needs of the environment, which is why people move here in the first place,” MacKenzie said.
PRESERVES BEING FILMED
1. St. Joseph Bay Aquatic Preserve, Port St. Joe, in the Panhandle
2. Rainbow Springs Aquatic Preserve, Ocala
3. St. Martin’s Marsh Aquatic Preserve, Crystal River
4. Charlotte Harbor Coastal and Aquatic Managed Area (CAMA) sites, Punta Gorda area, Charlotte County:
• Cape Haze Aquatic Preserve
• Gasparilla Sound Aquatic Preserve
• Lemon Bay Aquatic Preserve
• Matlacha Pass Aquatic Preserve
• Pine Island Sound Aquatic Preserve
5. Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve, Estero
6. Cape Romano-Ten Thousand Island Aquatic Preserve/Rookery Bay Reserve, Collier County
7. Loxahatchee River-Lake Worth Creek Aquatic Preserve, West Palm Beach
8. Indian River-Vero Beach to Fort Pierce/Aquatic Preserve, Fort Pierce
9. Indian River-Malabar to Vero Beach Aquatic Preserve, Fellsmere
10. Mosquito Lagoon Aquatic Preserve, near Daytona
11. Wekiva River Aquatic Preserve, Orlando
12. Nassau River, St. John’s Marsh Aquatic Preserve, Jacksonville
WHAT’S NEXT
This week and next week, photographer Clyde Butcher and filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus will film in the Charlotte Harbor Coastal and Aquatic Managed Area, which includes Pine Island Sound and Matlacha Pass aquatic preserves.
Charlotte Harbor is unique in that it is a large, relatively undisturbed estuary, said Gary Litton, environmental administrator for the Southwest Region Coastal and Aquatic Managed Area, which includes the Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Collier County, Charlotte Harbor and Tampa Bay in Hillsborough County.
“Charlotte Harbor is trying to sustain the productivity of its system as the population continues to grow there,” Litton said.
The state DEP is trying to start a baseline monitoring system for water quality in the estuaries.
“As the (population) pressures increase, we can hopefully catch any trends early before they turn to crises,” Andrews said.
DIFFERENT GOALS
Clyde Butcher and Elam Stoltzfus tie up their little boat at a canoe launch at a bend in the Estero River.
They agree the setting and light look promising for a good shoot. Stoltzfus wants movement; Butcher, absolute stillness.
The men get out with their respective camera gear.
Butcher takes a homemade 5-by-7, 38-millimeter camera he has dubbed the Clyde-a-Wide, and shoots the river and the opposite bank from a bench.
Behind him, an armadillo rustles in brush around the base of a tree.
This is part of what is known as the buffer preserve of the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve. The preserve itself covers about 10,000 acres, including the Estero River and other tributaries that feed into Estero Bay, said Heather Stafford, preserve manager.
The buffer preserve is another 10,000 acres of land that the state has purchased around the estuary to buffer it from nearby upland development, she said.
This part of the buffer area features palm trees, palmetto shrubs and a walking trail.
Any runoff from development winds up being filtered through the buffer before it gets to the bay.
On the trail, Butcher finds a small palmetto shrub with one frond curled inward like an arthritic hand. He’s never seen anything like it.
“I think this is going to be an interesting — if nothing else an historical picture,” he said. This time, he uses his 1943 Deardorff, large-format camera.
Butcher spends the next two hours stooping, kneeling and lying next to the shrub, photographing in the subtropical heat.
Cruising along the river near the end of the day, the tops of the red stucco roofs from a nearby gated community can be seen in the distance.
Some of the homes there probably approach $3 million in value — the entire yearly budget for all of the state’s 41 aquatic preserves.
