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Selby Gardens is excited to participate in the Gulf Coast Innovation Challenge with “Living Shorelines.” The goal of this competition, sponsored by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, is to fund innovative solutions to challenges that affect Southwest Florida.
This first innovation challenge focuses on our region’s “blue economy” and the marine science industry. Selby Gardens is leading one of 31 project teams competing, ultimately, for a $375,000 award to implement a “blue” economic impact project that will benefit the community-at-large, elevate Selby Gardens’ status as a world-class center for habitat conservation and research, and highlight the natural asset that is our Bayfront home.
So why would a botanical garden initiate a project that centers on water-based industry? Simple: Selby Gardens is surrounded on its east, south, and west sides by WATER.
We are also a conservation organization. And we recognize that, just as plants and animals are part of an interdependent “web of life,” both land-based life and the lifeforms found in our waters are inseparably intertwined. The state of the physical elements that support that life – including our Sarasota Bay Estuary – is absolutely crucial to the well being of all life on our planet. And that is something we cannot ignore.
The Challenge: Some 80% of Sarasota Bay is hardened by seawalls—usually concrete structures at the edge of the waterfront that are intended to protect property from erosion and flooding. But traditional seawalls do exactly the opposite: not only do they intensify the erosion of unhardened shoreline, they also have a tremendous negative environmental impact on Sarasota Bay, making our waters murkier, impeding the establishment of normal communities of marine and shore-based life, and making it impossible for plants along the shoreline to perform a critical task: filtering pollutants from water that runs into the Bay. Because of this negative environmental impact, it is increasingly difficult to get government permits to repair existing seawalls. That is something we hope to change.
Our Solution: A charrette to design, prototype, display, and test at Selby Gardens living shorelines and living seawalls. These innovative, environment-friendly solutions still help landowners protect their property, but they use clever technological and natural solutions to achieve the same goals as seawalls. The living seawalls and shorelines that emerge from the Living Shorelines project:
- Will be environmentally superior to traditional seawalls
- Are comparable in cost to traditional seawalls
- Are more readily permitted than traditional seawalls
- Can be produced locally
- Enhance local ecotourism
Selby Gardens is partnering with the Science and Environment Council of Southwest Florida; Sarasota Bay Watch; Sarasota Bay Estuary Program; and the Reef Ball Foundation on this project, creating a mix of skills and expertise that are a winning recipe for success.
The Impact:
The living seawalls and shorelines this project promotes can have a tremendous impact on our community and the “salt life” we all love:
- The quantity and diversity of marine and shoreline life will improve to past levels
- The water in Sarasota Bay will be both clearer and cleaner
- The new designs will create new business opportunities and new jobs
- Property owners will be able to get permits to repair or replace seawalls more easily
- These more easily permitted designs will encourage existing contractors to adopt new green practices
- These designs will be scalable and exportable, providing a tremendous boost to our local economy
- The opportunity to manufacture, sell, and install the new designs will create new jobs
- Living Shorelines will help educate more than 150,000 annual visitors and some 6,000 schoolchildren each year about ways to keep the watershed healthy
- The Science and Environment Council will be able to lead ecotours that will create an additional boost to Southwest Florida’s economy and provide opportunities for visitors to arrive at Selby Gardens by boat.
Please visit Selby Gardens’ Living Shorelines project page, LIKE our project, and share it with your friends, family, business associates and others. And help Selby Gardens win!