With the mission “Advocacy through Education,” the staff and Advocacy Committee of the “Ding” Darling Wildlife Society-Friends of the Refuge have created a resources web page that contains links to articles, videos, and other resources that deal with the health of the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, local waterways and wildlife.
“We designed our Advocacy Resources pages as a storehouse for the collective local knowledge pertaining to crucial water quality topics such water storage, Lake Okeechobee releases, legislative concerns, and current water conditions,” said Sarah Ashton, who co-chairs the committee with Jim Metzler.
The two author educational articles that appear biweekly in the “Ding” on the Wing email bulletin distributed by the “Ding” Darling Wildlife Society-Friends of the Refuge (DDWS) to its more than 11,000 contacts. The Advocacy Resources page archives these articles, which range in subject matter from wisely fertilizing to contacting Army Corps of Engineers personnel about problematic issues that affect the quality of our water.
The new Advocacy Resources page provides links to newspaper articles, documents and videos from organizations such as the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, the City of Sanibel, and the University of Florida. These resources were chosen to inform and educate the public about a range of topics that impact the Refuge.
“Our committee believes that one of the most important things that all of us can do to improve water quality is to continually educate ourselves on the key issues and proposed solutions,” said Metzler. “Ongoing education enables us to be accurate and up to date when we talk about water quality to our friends and other interested parties and when we request our political leaders to take action. We created the new Advocacy Resources page to make that task easier for all of us.”
Other DDWS Advocacy Committee members include Mike Baldwin, Mark Banks, Mick Denham, Melissa Laidlaw, Dick Levinson, John McCabe, and Jerry Smith.
To access the wealth of resources compiled, visit dingdarlingsociety.org/articles/advocacy-resources.