Preserving Paradise

This is an excerpt from PALMER Vol.7. To see the full story, purchase your copy of the magazine here.

South Florida is teeming with rare native plants and animal species whose survival is under constant threat. Meet the growing group of activists and experts whose life work is preserving and sustaining this piece of paradise.

 

Duane De Freese: Steward of the Lagoon

With his lean, athletic frame, easy smile, and impressive collection of surfboards, which neatly line a wall of his home in Indian Harbor Beach, Duane De Freese, 70, could easily be mistaken for another of Florida’s active retirees who’ve made surfing their second career. But more than just an avid surfer and waterman, the marine biologist has been the leader of one of Florida’s most effective environmental initiatives of the last decade.

As executive director of the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program since 2015, De Freese oversees the protection of a vast 156-mile estuary system spanning 40 percent of Florida’s east coast. His job is to coordinate the complex network of federal, state, and local agencies, scientific organizations, and community groups that are working to restore and protect this threatened ecosystem. As “the producers of the show,” as he puts it, his team’s challenge is to ensure that all the different players work in harmony. With annual investments from local, state, and federal partners exceeding $100 million, the organization manages projects ranging from improving water quality to restoring oyster reefs and seagrass beds.

De Freese has been lauded for his science-based, common-sense approach to conservation, and for his talent for diplomatically bridging divides between environmentalists, developers, politicians, and local communities. His work is all the more remarkable considering that for the last seven years he’s been battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. But De Freese remains positive and vows to continue his mission to care for the health of the Indian River Lagoon.

 

John Fitzpatrick & Sahas Barve: Guardians of the Florida Scrub Jay

Few creatures serve as better barometers of environmental health than birds, and few scientists have done more to advance our understanding of them than John “Fitz” Fitzpatrick. Since 1972, when he first set foot onto Florida’s Archbold Biological Station as a college student learning to do field research, the ornithologist has been a transformative force in his field—serving as the director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York, for 26 years while maintaining his deep connection to the remarkable Florida scrub jay, a highly intelligent bird that helps raise its younger cohorts, and is found nowhere else in the world.

After retiring from Cornell, Fitzpatrick, 73, has come full circle, taking on the role of board chair at Archbold, where his lifelong study of scrub jays first began. Meanwhile, the next generation of research is in the capable hands of Archbold’s Director of Avian Ecology, Sahas Barve. Born and raised in Mumbai, Barve brings both fresh energy and a global perspective to the work. After studying birds from the Himalayas to California’s woodlands and completing his PhD under Fitzpatrick at Cornell in 2017, he arrived at Archbold in 2022 to oversee their 56-year study of the Florida scrub jay—a dataset that tracks an astonishing 14 generations of birds.

Their work has become increasingly urgent: The scrub jay has vanished from a dozen Florida counties, its habitat lost to development and its future threatened by climate change. Together, they bring complementary strengths to the fight for Florida’s unique avian heritage: Fitzpatrick’s decades of conservation victories and deep knowledge of the region’s ecology, combined with Barve’s innovative research approaches and commitment to making science accessible to new generations.

 

Julian Yuri Rodriguez: The Midnight Snake Whisperer

Two years ago, Julian Yuri Rodriguez was a budding Miami filmmaker scouting locations in the Everglades for a music video for local rapper Pouya. But something happened in those swamps that changed everything—he discovered a wild Florida hiding in plain sight, just a short drive from his home near the Miami airport. Now the first-generation Cuban American has become an unlikely bridge between urban Miami and its untamed edges, transforming himself into a gonzo naturalist whose bare-handed encounters with wildlife rack up hundreds of thousands of views on social media.

By day, Rodriguez works as an operations supervisor at Miami tree company TreeSource, where he’s learning to care for live oak, mahogany, and gumbo limbo trees, among others. But after hours, he ventures into dark waters with his camera to catch and release everything from rare Brooks kingsnakes to Mexican spiny-tailed iguanas (“the fastest lizards in the world”). His TikTok and Instagram accounts—cheekily named @flaglernaturecenter after his decidedly un-wild address on busy Flagler Street—document these adventures with infectious enthusiasm. He’s been bitten by snakes “hundreds of times,” and even had a snake fang stuck in his knuckle for six months, but unless the snake is venomous, he shrugs it off as no big deal.

His hands-on approach might make wildlife purists wince, but for this self-taught Gen Z Steve Irwin, getting up close with Florida’s creatures is the best way to make people care about preserving them. His popular videos have led to collaborations with brands like Merrell, proving that sometimes the best environmental ambassador is the one who isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty—or bitten.

 

Hilary Swain: Keeper of Florida’s Living Laboratory

Her distinctive accent makes it clear she hails from abroad. But after nearly four decades immersed in the ecology of Florida, Scotland-born Hilary Swain, who earned her PhD at England’s University of Newcastle upon Tyne, knows the Sunshine State better than pretty much anyone. “I will never be a native, but I love Florida,” she says. When she first arrived in 1986 to work at Florida Institute of Technology, she recalls, “I just couldn’t believe that I could walk to the end of the street and see manatees and alligators, species of a size and scale that disappeared from Europe centuries ago!”

That initial wonder never faded. As executive director of Archbold Biological Station near Lake Placid since 1995, Swain oversees a remarkable scientific enterprise spanning 20,000 acres of Florida’s most precious landscapes—from scrubland where endangered species roam, to a 10,500-acre working cattle ranch that’s helping redefine sustainable agriculture. Under her leadership, what began as a remote field station has evolved into a powerhouse of ecological research, with 75 staff members deploying cutting-edge technology to study everything from climate change to water conservation. Now, as she prepares to step down in August 2025, she’s become the first woman to receive The Wildlife Society’s Herbert W. Kale II Award, though she’s quick to emphasize her work is far from over. “I have all this experience and knowledge, and before it all fades away, I want to help move conservation forward.”

 

Amanda Skier & Susan Lerner: Redefining Palm Beach’s Paradise

In Palm Beach, where a picture-perfect manicured lawn has long been considered the de rigueur setting for a multimillion-dollar mansion, Amanda Skier and Susan Lerner are leading a quiet revolution. At the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, where Skier, 39, serves as president and CEO and Lerner, 74, works as director of horticulture, the two women are reshaping the city’s landscape by championing native plants while preparing the barrier island for an environmentally uncertain future.

Their flagship project has been the transformation of Pan’s Garden, a half-acre botanical sanctuary one block off Worth Avenue that holds the distinction of being Florida’s first all-native garden. Under Lerner’s direction since 2018, what was once a neglected space has become a vibrant showcase featuring over 270 native species; more than a lovely oasis for a lunch break in the heart of downtown, it’s also a living laboratory for homeowners and landscape architects, providing ideas and inspiration for sustainable planting.

Their partnership began serendipitously—Lerner, then president of the Palm Beach chapter of the Native Plant Society, was recommended to Skier by a board member during a chance encounter at a nail salon. While the Preservation Foundation was traditionally known for protecting Palm Beach’s architectural heritage, Skier sees their environmental work as fundamental to their mission, not separate from it. Now the colleagues are undertaking their most ambitious project yet: the complete reinvention of Phipps Ocean Park. This 20-acre project, spearheaded by the Foundation, will combine scientific restoration of native habitats with world-class landscape design, funded by over $40 million in private donations—a testament to how effectively they’ve convinced Palm Beach’s residents that protecting the island’s ecological heritage is as crucial as preserving its architectural treasures.