Coquina Beach is a Manatee County recreation park occupying the southern tip of Anna Maria Island in the City of Bradenton Beach. The landscape of the dunefield zone used for parking is a relic from the past -- a mono-culture of Australian pines.

The County is currently installing a multi-purpose trail along the beach behind the dunes that has required removing many of the pines. The knowledge that the introduction of these trees was an error of historic proportions is well established and internationally acknowledged. Nevertheless, one can always find on these islands a sizable group of recent immigrants ignorant of that knowledge and another group fervently sentimental for their own olden days when the island was even more infested with them.

Undaunted, the project will continue in spite of the outcry. Of course there would have been very little outcry if the County had only included some revegetation of the bare-stripped areas in their grant application instead of relegating it to "another later project." This error does offer, however, an opportunity to cement in the County brains-that-be the idea that no vegetation not native should be planted by them on the island ever again. Hence the following photo and illustration presented to the Scenic Highway Committee to give them a vision to aim for:

This is the beach after removal of the Australian Pines.

And here planted with trees native to our barrier island maritime forest.

•  LARGE PHOTO FOR SCREENS 15IN OR LESS  •  LARGE PHOTO FOR SCREENS 19IN OR MORE  •

•  NOW SEE THE BEAUTY OF OUR ISLAND NATIVES IN THE GALLERY SECTION.

•  OR SEE PHOTOS OF ISLAND NATIVE LANDSCAPES IN MY MODELS SECTION.