Finding Nature with Dade Heritage Trust

Lose yourself in the woods. Learn to be still among the gnarly, tangled, weaving tropical trees. Give yourself the privilege of hearing what can only be heard when you disappear.

All of those experiences are part of an environmental education campaign pioneered by Dade Heritage Trust (DHT) that has kids traipsing through the last remaining wild spaces of local parks.

One of the natural areas the children visit (now virtually) is a 15-acre tropical hammock and pine rockland tucked into the corner of A.D. Barnes Park in Southwest Miami. The park is popular for birthday party picnics but fewer visitors venture into the nature preserve, where the tree canopy gets taller and more dense.

These woods are a postage-size stamp of the vast 185,000-acre ecosystem that once dominated Miami-Dade County. Those forests, of course, gave way long ago to farms and settlement which, in turn, became Westchester, the Palmetto Expressway and the corner gas station on Bird Road.

But here under the slash pines, in the shade of the live oak, along the unpaved nature trails, you can return to that earlier time, as the children do, in wonder.

“Everyone has to be quiet,” says Lucia Meneses, DHT’s school programs manager, when she plays the “sound map” game with the children. At first, it’s hard to keep still. But as the minutes tick by, the kids come to appreciate how magical it feels to listen to the chirping, rustling and whistling of the woods.

Their field journals often reveal an amazement of the natural world they rarely encounter in their day-to-day lives, Meneses said. This particular comment from a fifth-grader at Southside Elementary she keeps close to her heart: “Sometimes we get so caught up in our own cities and minds that we forget how beautiful nature can be.”

The children don’t just walk the trail, they engage in activities designed to help them experience the forest. For many, it’s their first time in a wilderness area, whether it’s a hammock, pineland or the vast expanse of Biscayne Bay.

It’s a memory they may carry with them their whole lives, said Christine Rupp, DHT’s executive director. She created the program “Historic Places, Green Spaces” to instill a sense of civic pride and engagement.

“If you don’t know what’s out there, you don’t know what to advocate for,” she said. “This place, you love it, you treasure it, you want things to get better. I’m hopeful a more youthful generation will get it right.” 

DHT also teaches the children that a forest matters in the larger scheme of things. One trail sign explains: “Forests help clean the air and water, control stormwater, conserve energy, reduce noise pollution, provide habitat for wildlife and enhance economic value to communities.”

Clearly, trees are not just trees; they are homes. DHT makes that connection in its new signage on the trail that explains how some of the 120 species of tropical plants in the hammock benefit birds and pollinators. The signs pair plants with species: muscadine grapes and moths; cocoplum and gopher tortoises; wild lime and swallowtail butterflies; strangler figs and red-bellied woodpeckers. Plants are not just plants, they are food.

“The forest is part of the web,” said Meneses. “Our focus is to understand the ecosystems, to meet the different players, and to learn how they interact with each other and how our actions have an impact on the lives that depend upon it.”

When the kids are introduced to Biscayne Bay, for example, DHT tests the water for pollutants, to show how human activity may adversely affect an ecosystem.

“Mangroves, seagrasses, corals – the children are asked to consider how everything interacts with each other and how our actions have an impact,” Meneses said.

DHT’s next trail project is Arch Creek Park, where a forest remnant survives at the busy intersection of Biscayne Boulevard and 135th Street in North Miami. This county park and nature preserve, which was once a major tourist attraction, was almost razed for a used-car dealership.

Arch Creek was named for its natural limestone arch over the waterway and was once the site of an ancient Tequesta Indian Village. The creek was a conduit for canoes to reach Biscayne Bay and its rich abundant fisheries that sustained the community. And that fits in nicely with DHT’s future lesson plans. Water is not just water.

It’s a life force. Like the forests, it is home. 

If You Go

A.D. Barnes Park 3401 SW 72nd Ave., Miami

miamidade.gov/parks/Parks/ad_barnes.asp

Arch Creek Park 1855 NE 135th St., North Miami Beach

miamidade.gov/parks/arch-creek.asp

Virginia Key 

archive.miamigov.com/parks/virginiaKey.html

For more information on Dade Heritage Trust, visit dadeheritagetrust.org.