Students Protest Nature Preserve Remodel
Joshua Muñoz-Jimenez is the Organic Garden manager. As a senior, he will be the first student to graduate FIU with a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural sciences.
According to Muñoz-Jimenez, many species such as native box turtles, fish, native frogs, foxes and snakes depend on the lake in the wetland. He also says every mammal, every bird that lives in the Nature Preserve also depends on this lake as it’s their only water source.
“The issue with the lake removal is that it takes about 30 to 40 years to make it environmentally stable for native species to use it. So replacing it and putting it on another side of the Nature Preserve would not work,” Muñoz-Jimenez said.
“It all works together as a system; like a car, for example, it would not function if you take one part out so removing the lake would make the entire ecosystem collapse,” he said.
Muñoz-Jimenez pointed out that older citizens in their 50s and 60s outside of FIU also use the jogging path to walk and that building over the Nature Preserve would not only affect FIU students but the community as a whole.
