Manatee County's Robinson Preserve expansion promises grand features
The estimated $8.8 million expansion of the wildly popular Robinson Preserve in West Bradenton should begin this summer, a new Herald report explains. The 150-acre addition to the 487-acre gem will include what we expect will become the crown jewel.
First and foremost for nature lovers should be access to the amazing legacy of the Reasoner family, which founded a pioneering nursery and landscaping business here dating back more than a century ago.
The founders set sail to Africa and South America and brought back plant cuttings they thought would thrive in the Florida climate, and some of those plants remain today.
"They are 80 to 90 years old, and beautiful," Charlie Hunsicker, Manatee County natural resources director, said of the mature specimens during a 2013 public discussion of the Robinson Preserve expansion.
The Mosaic Company Foundation deserves credit, too, for a multimillion dollar contribution to build what looks like a treehouse on the expansion site. The Mosaic Center for Nature Exploration, Science and Technology will bring a deeper educational experience to a preserve visit, one that children and adults alike should appreciate.
The Mosaic Company, which mines phosphate in central Florida and Manatee County, gets plenty of criticism from environmental activists and others for carving deep holes in the earth to extract a mineral important to farming and crops.
A tour of the company's environmental restoration projects, as this Editorial Board undertook, shows a corporate commitment to good scientific practices to return land to a natural state.
Mosaic's commitment to the communities and environments they call home extends to the company foundation's contributions to many civic endeavors. Mosaic deserves thanks for this.
Though several years off, we eagerly await the completion of the expansion of the Robinson Preserve and the opening of the education center.
This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Manatee County's Robinson Preserve expansion promises grand features ."