Linda Barry

Southern Perspective

Most of Florida dangles from our continent’s southeastern corner like an unpredictable chad ready to cast a vote. We can stand on any one of our 8,436 miles of coastline trying to see infinity. We have no way to know the visible distance, but one mile of ocean looks pretty much like the one next to it from the sand. We often forget there’s still a direction with even more visibility, and that’s up.

We can almost always see the moon at 238,900 miles away, but what about the other celestial bodies? Light pollution often grays them out and prevents us from seeing the universe in its vast and true glory.

But guess what? We have people committed to preserving our dark skies. In fact, three state and national parks are designated as Dark Sky Parks by the International Dark Sky Association. The closest one is the Stephen C. Foster State Park, which is smack dab in the Okefenokee Swamp just over the Georgia state line. The other two are the Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park in central Florida and the Big Cypress National Preserve in southern Florida.

Being a Dark Sky Park means the site allows public viewing, makes efforts to meet and stay within scientific guidelines and receives ongoing community support. In fact, the very first nighttime viewing requirement of a Dark Sky Park is that the Milky Way must be readily visible to the unaided eye. How cool is that?

“Makes efforts at guidelines,” you say. “What kind of efforts?”

That’s a fair question. For instance, the Stephen C. Foster State Park officials removed streetlights and changed bulbs on other lights to shine downward instead of outward. They even installed motion detectors in some lights to prevent unnecessary glare. It was quite an effort as they also worked with the local utility company to achieve the designation.

It seems like a lot of trouble to go to just so people can see the skies. Well, that’s reason enough if we, as the public, want to either simply enjoy them or to learn from them. There’s the bonus, however, of helping the wildlife preserve its biological functions. We know how important that is here for the sea turtle hatchlings to not mistake artificial lights for the ocean’s reflections.

I have no idea if one of our areas would be suitable for a Dark Sky Park location, but it might be worth a try. At best, we could be part of a global community actively working for dark sky conservation. At worst ... well, there really is no worst. Let’s just go with the best.

Linda Barry is a southern gal and a columnist for the Pensacola News Journal.