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Lecture to Focus on Sanibel Plan’s Creation
Join us for a free gathering at the Bailey Homestead Preserve pavilion on March 16 at 4 p.m. for the first in a series of lectures on The Sanibel Plan. SCCF Pfeifer Conservation Fellow Thomas Ankersen, professor emeritus at the University of Florida, will discuss the outsized role that the Sanibel Plan and its legendary authors have played in land use planning and public policy.
He’ll also delve into the challenges the island city faces as it recovers from Hurricane Ian, and looks to a future laced with threats that were not even on the radar of the Plan’s original authors.
“The Sanibel Plan holds a remarkable place in the history of land use planning in Florida, the United States, and even beyond,” said Ankersen. “This pioneering piece of public policy emerged from a milieu that featured the convergence of a novel approach to physical planning, the birth of a political movement, and a “quiet revolution” in public policy.”
The authors of the Sanibel Plan were preeminent thought leaders in each of those areas, and the newly incorporated City had both the vision and the wherewithal to bring them to the Island for the mind meld that became the Sanibel Plan.
“The result was — and is — a Plan like no other; one in which the protection of nature serves as the central organizing principle of governance,” he added.
Ankersen is Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and Director Emeritus of the Coastal Policy Lab at UF’s Center for Coastal Solutions and the Florida Sea Grant Legal Program. He currently serves as the SCCF’s first Pfeifer Conservation Fellow.
In addition to a law degree, Ankersen holds a master’s degree in history from the University of South Florida. For three decades Ankersen and his students worked to move the public policy needle in the direction of conservation at all levels of government.
No registration is necessary for this event at SCCF’s Bailey Homestead Preserve, 1300 Periwinkle Way. It will be outdoors, in the pavilion, which does not have fans at this time due to hurricane impacts.