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Koreshan, Sierra Club host Earth Day celebration

Colorful streamers hung from tree branches at the Koreshan State Historic Site, and drummers performed at the center of the old Estero settlement, after speakers took to the stage to talk about water quality and conservation.

This was how the Calusa Group of the Sierra Club marked Earth Day at Saturday’s celebration.

Free kayak rides along the Estero River encouraged families to linger outdoors, while vendors showcased bamboo clothing, non-toxic cleaning supplies, jewelry and nature-themed artwork.

The event, one of several in the area celebrating Earth Day, drew hundreds of people.

Among them was Naples resident Rob Anderson, who said he heard about the event from a yoga instructor.

“I have an interest in all this,” he said. “You’ve got to educate people.”

Along with the music and food, local hiking groups provided information on places to explore around Southwest Florida, and a variety of environmental groups encouraged involvement beyond the annual event.

Volunteers there encouraged actions as small as adding a native plant to yard landscape. Many left the park with free seedlings to try that were plucked off a red, child’s wagon beside one of the booths.

The plants were dune sunflowers, explained Jim Wohlpart, a San Carlos Park resident and a volunteer with Estero Bay Buddies, the group handing out the donated plants.

“It gets a beautiful yellow flower to it,” he said, showing a picture of the full-grown plants, which grow in the area’s sandy soil and won’t need extra water.

“It’s good for the kind of climate we have,” he said. “We try to encourage as many native plants as possible.”

For a group that does everything from clearing trails to holding fundraisers to helping support the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve, the connection between the bay and inland backyards is the quality of the water that leaves a residential area, then flows through creeks and rivers out to the bay and beyond.

The fewer fertilizers and chemicals along the way, the better.

Or, as one woman explained it to two young children after looking at exhibits on some of Southwest Florida’s waterways: “Too much bad stuff in the water causes problems.”

Education -- whether it’s for children, seasonal visitors or full-time residents -- is part of the purpose of the event, Wohlpart said.

“It’s a way of a creating a new ethos,” he said of concern for the environment, and for him, concern about climate change. “Unless we change our way of relating with the earth, we aren’t going to have much of an earth left.”

Earth Day has been sparking events promoting environmental awareness around the country for more than a quarter century.

The Koreshan park event, now in its seventh year, grows a little bit more each time it is held, he said.

One newcomer this year was Marti Daltry, a volunteer with the advocacy group Caloosahatchee River Citizens Association.

As part of continued efforts to address threats to water quality, the group is trying to get people to show up at a Lee County Commission meeting May 13 to ask for stronger rules on how homeowners apply fertilizer to their yards -- a practice with consequences for waterways.

“It contributes to algal blooms and red tide,” she said.

Limiting the use of fertilizers with nitrogen and phosphorous, particularly during certain times of the year, makes a difference, she said, as does the use of slow-release fertilizers.

Like the volunteers with Estero Bay Buddies, she explained it can come down to a choice of landscaping.

“If you use native plants, you don’t have to fertilize at all,” she said.