Panther Party Celebration

Environmental groups and residents gathered at Oak and Stone in Estero on Thursday, March 28 to celebrate the win of a recent court case that prevented environmental permits for two sprawling developments. Meanwhile, the parties in that federal court case are scheduled to meet Thursday, April 4 to discuss the path forward.

The Sierra Club hosted the celebratory event on Thursday, bringing panther masks for people to wear. Those masks were planned as a protest where people would enact the death and injury to Florida panthers when it looked like the case would not be won. The Kingston development in Lee County and Bellmar development in Collier County were estimated to lead to the death of 24 or more endangered Florida panthers each year. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials have estimated there are 200 or fewer panthers living throughout the entire state and most of them are in this southwest Florida region. 

“Oh man, these were for the die-in,” said Solemi Hernandez, southeast regional coordinator at Citizens' Climate Lobby, of the planned protest turned party.

Her face mirrored the sentiments of 30 or more people attending the celebration as they realized that for each mask worn by a human, approximately that many panthers would have died, but were spared by the court decision brought on by many people leading the fight against over-development and environmental peril in Florida. 

The Sierra Club, Conservancy of Southwest Florida and Center for Biological Diversity, among other environmental groups, partnered with their legal counsel, Earthjustice, to put an end to what they said was a dangerous environmental permitting process by the state of Florida. The 404 wetland permitting process was managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers until 2020 when Florida Department of Environmental Protection took over the process. 

Florida became one of only three states to control wetland permitting through Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. The other states are New Jersey and Michigan. Those states have different processes than Florida. 

U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss ruled on February 15 that Florida’s wetland permitting process was offering immunity for the deaths of panthers in a way that violated the Endangered Species Act. This decision prevented the Bellmar project and Kingston project, among others at various stages in the state permitting process, from receiving their permits. Now, the developers will have to reapply through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers if any endangered or threatened species are likely to be affected by a project. More is still to be decided in the case. 

Bellmar Village was proposed as more than 5,000 acres of development off Golden Gate Boulevard East by owner Collier Enterprises, now part of Tarpon Blue Group. Kingston Village was proposed as a development by Cameratta Companies on 6,676 acres of land on Corkscrew Road in eastern Lee County.

The legal challenge to the Clean Water Act 404 permitting process was first launched in 2021 by several environmental groups. These groups and other environmental leaders warned that state oversight would be weaker than federal oversight. The 404 permit is for discharging dredge or fill material into waterways.