Our mission is to preserve, conserve and restore native plants and native plant communities of Florida.
To accomplish our mission, we will:
To accomplish our mission, we will:
- Make native plants readily accessible
- Make native plants identifiable
- Provide assistance for getting native plants in the ground
- Coccoloba Chapter hosts monthly member meetings with informative speakers. These meetings are open to the public and generally advertised. Top-notch speakers provide information to members and the public to fulfill our mission.
- Coccoloba Chapter participates in classes to educate the public of the benefits of native plants and, on the other hand, the need to remove invasive exotic plants. These classes are mostly held at Cutting Horse Eco-Center.
- Coccoloba Chapter also performs SITE VISITS to individual homes, communities or businesses providing hands-on assistance to meet their native plant goals.
- Coccoloba Chapter also makes native plants available at all possible events. For instance, members bring propagated plants from their yards to monthly meetings. These plants are described and auctioned off during the meeting.
- By making native plants more readily available, we can close the gap (and potential lapse) between when people learn of the benefits of native plants and when they actually plant on in their yard. (Refer to Prochaska's Model to the right.)
- Coccoloba Chapter provides other support to schools by hosting teachers' workshops and conducting site visits. The chapter also monitors and assists with previous planting projects like at Fort Myers Middle Academy.
- Coccoloba Chapter coordinates field trips that are generally open to the public to see native plants in their natural environment.
- Coccoloba Chapter members also participate in land management reviews of public lands to evaluate how the land is being managed. These reviews are in conjunction with various like-minded partners such as Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and others.
- Coccoloba Chapter hosts workdays at various publicly-owned properties to pull weeds and spruce up the natural space. This hands-on activity helps us learn what to pull out and what to keep, while providing a little extra assistance to the park.
The bottom line is that Coccoloba Chapter and their fantastic members work well with others and successfully get more native plants in the ground!