This story was funded by the Schooner Foundation as well as readers like you.

A gray sky hovered over the gray pavement of a parking lot at Zoo Miami when conservation biologist Mylea Bayless arrived. It was November 4, 2023 – dreary and drizzly, an imperfect Saturday morning to be hosting a major public rally. Hundreds of people had signed up, but a rainy morning could be the perfect excuse for Miami locals to stay home. 

Soon, a slow trickle of attendees became a steady stream until a crowd of more than 300 people congregated to support South Florida’s most critically endangered habitat. 

It’s here, next to this empty lot, that the pine rocklands teem with life. Endangered Florida bonneted bats, Miami tiger beetles, Bartram’s scrub-hairstreak butterflies, eastern indigo snakes, eight federally listed native plants, and 98 other imperiled species call this small, 67-acre plot of land home. It’s the same spot where developers planned to build a water park called Miami Wilds that would, if approved, disturb the wildlife’s last refuge. 

On this overcast day, however, hope radiated throughout the crowd like an electric current.

“Let the bats have the dark, 

We don’t want no water park!”

The jaunty chant echoed through the crowd as it migrated from parking lot to street. Children dressed as bats and beetles and butterflies touted homemade signs down traffic-heavy 152nd Street, cars honking in support.

As Bayless marched with the crowd, a pre-teen boy beside her kept peering at her “Save the Florida bonneted bat” sign. When she gave it to him, he suddenly came alive, leading chants on his own and grinning through his missing front teeth. In his face she saw the future of conservation. 

A Developer’s Dream

In Miami, construction never ends. Highways remain jammed, high-rises spring up on the coastline, and shopping malls expand inland. Congestion is at an all-time high. 

It isn’t that surprising. Miami’s history of habitat destruction is ingrained in its creation. South Florida’s early settlers aggressively drained the Everglades, built a canal system, and paved over native ecosystems with a lust for so-called civilization. Nature has survived, but there’s a cruel truth about South Florida: The developer often wins. 

“Urbanization only has to win once, and then that piece of nature is gone forever,” Bayless said. “We have to win every time against every threat. It gets exhausting.” 

Hurricane Andrew left Miami unrecognizable in 1992, and the Category 5 storm hit the Richmond Heights neighborhood especially hard. Back then, not much other than the zoo and some town homes existed in this part of the city. 

Five years later, the Miami-Dade Board of County Commissioners devised a plan to turn the area from “undeveloped lands” to a “special theme park.” The zoo’s family-friendly appeal and seemingly useless forest seemed like the perfect location for a grand vision to open a sub-Disney paradise. A wildlife-themed water park, hotel, and shopping center would become a bustling tourist attraction and generate thousands of jobs for the community. In 2006, voters approved a referendum allowing for the development of this so-called entertainment district “on land that is not environmentally sensitive” — a misleading proposal. But it wasn’t until 2013 that Miami Wilds, LLC, was formally established and, a year later, selected as the private developer to make Miami-Dade County’s entertainment district a reality.

This was land with a deep history. The semicircular lot where Miami Wilds was slated to be built was initially a World War II naval base for blimps designed to scout for U-Boats. By the 1960s, it was a CIA camp. In the 1970s and ’80s, it wound up in the hands of the National Park Service as part of its lands-to-parks program. But without plans to make the land into a park, the service handed the land over to Miami-Dade County, its current owner, under the stipulation that it not be used for commercial purposes, explained Elise Bennett, a senior attorney based in Florida at the Center for Biological Diversity. 

That stipulation was critical. It meant that in order to develop the land commercially, Miami-Dade County needed to remove the National Park Service’s land-use restrictions. In 2011, they did just that by “transferring” the restrictions to a different tract of land. But by the time Miami Wilds secured a lease and development agreement with the county in 2020, which the National Park Service formally signed off on in 2022, they skipped a step. 

“That is where the legal violation happened,” Bennett said. Under the Endangered Species Act, federal agencies are required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on actions that could imperil federally protected species. Worse, the county and park service were already aware of the critters that live in the Richmond rocklands — and more are being discovered, like the pine rockland trapdoor spider. “This mistake was more than just a failure to do paperwork, but really had substantive harm for these species,” Bennett added. 

The Center for Biological Diversity promptly wrote a letter to the National Park Service on August 17, 2022, giving the agency 60 days to resolve the problem; otherwise, Bennett’s team would sue. The county, the park service, and Miami Wilds were all subject to violation of the Endangered Species Act’s “take” provision, which means harming, harassing, killing, or destroying the habitat of endangered species. 

On January 8, 2023, they sued. 

Timeline

The Last Remaining Rocklands

At first glance, pine rocklands are unassuming. The scrubby, dry forest could seem like a drab environment. Thousands of people drive past it daily on their way to work or filling up on gas, yet this fenced-off protected area often goes unnoticed. 

The rocklands’ beauty isn’t brimming with color and movement the way the Amazon rainforest or African savannah earned their fame. But look closer, and you’ll notice frail rare plants scattered about the forest floor, spider webs draping over saw palmetto shrubs like lace, and the screech of a red-shouldered hawk circling above the Florida slash pines. 

“I think people would sort of describe it as a cathedral,” Bennett said. “You’ve got that beautiful canopy of pine needles above, and then these pillars of the tree trunks, and then the beautiful little flowers. It can be breathtaking in its own way.”

Only about 1.2% of the pine rockland ecosystem exists outside of the Everglades. And as sea-level rise nibbles at the coast, rocklands in the Keys and other coastal areas will transform into salt-tolerant habitats — if they don’t go completely underwater. That’s why the inland Richmond rocklands are so crucial. “They truly will serve as a lifeboat for many of these species that will likely have few, if any, other places to live,” Bennett said.

There are now 23 federally protected species living in pine rocklands, a list that Bennett says will continue to grow. It was only in the past two decades that scientists began to understand how little habitat remains and how many rare species depend on it. 

As the county was drawing up blueprints, bat biologists were collecting data. What they found changed everything. 

Bats in a Coal Mine 

Florida bonneted bats make for an easy mascot for the pine rocklands. They have big brown eyes, fuzzy heads, and they coexist with humans in an urban environment, Bayless said. They also signaled to biologists that Zoo Miami’s pine rocklands are a biodiversity hotspot.

Back in 2003, when Miami Wilds was still just an idea, scientists at Bat Conservation International teamed up with the zoo to research the distribution of Florida bonneted bats across South Florida. At the time, scientists knew they were rare but lacked detailed data. It would take another decade to add the species to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s endangered species list. 

During that time, biologists completed a series of surveys using bat boxes and acoustic detectors, devices that work like camera traps by recording bat sounds. They ultimately reached one concerning conclusion: Not only is the Florida bonneted bat the most endangered bat species in the U.S., but it’s here, on this tract of pine rocklands, that the densest population lives. 

Bonneted bats like to have dark, open spaces to search for food because their wings are too large to navigate the narrow spaces between slash pines, explained Melquisedec Gamba-Rios, a behavioral ecologist at Bat Conservation International. Where military blimps once sat, a feast of insects now emerges at night. It’s the perfect feeding ground for bats, which is why a quarter of the entire population in southeast Florida lives here. Bat activity at Zoo Miami is 600 times higher than anywhere else in the state. “This really is the last oasis,” Gamba-Rios said. 

Then, in 2020, after collecting 17 years of data, Miami Wilds’ lease was approved “out of nowhere,” Bayless recalls. “That really was the rallying cry for us.” They scrambled to present their data at the next county commission meeting. 

It was thanks to their wealth of data that commissioners — and the courts — had no choice but to agree that this was a habitat they could not sacrifice. 

“I firmly believe that the reason that we were so successful at shifting the energy around Miami Wilds is because we had a science foundation,” Bayless said. 

The other reason was Ron Magill. At over six feet and tanned, the lifelong wildlife advocate is an imposing figure. His dark brows, thick mustache, wide smile, and booming voice make him an unmistakable personality. So it wasn’t surprising that the years-long Miami Wilds ordeal was largely absent from public discussion until the local conservation celebrity spoke out. 

Magill, renowned for his wildlife-entertainment stints on television and radio programs like “Sábado Gigante” and “The Dan LeBatard Show,” had stayed silent for what he says felt like too long. As the zoo’s communications director, he admits that he fully supported the theme park vision back in 2006. But when scientists started to document the scope of the Richmond rocklands’ biodiversity, his views changed. 

There was still one big problem: He was told to stay quiet. 

“I could not sit and be quiet because being quiet was being complicit,” Magill told The Marjorie. “Nothing serves authority better than silence.”

For Magill, the environmental threats were concerning, but the bureaucratic bullying was infuriating. Zoo Miami’s board of directors, and Magill’s bosses, had long been supportive of Miami Wilds. Meanwhile, the zoo’s conservation staff felt defeated. “No one’s listening to us,” one employee said through tears. Few felt like they could safely speak out. But not Magill. “I didn’t care that I was going to lose my job,” he said.

So, he broke the silence. He shook his finger in the faces of commissioners, he spoke to the media, and on Nov. 4, Magill led the landmark rally held at Zoo Miami. In his 44 years of working at the zoo, he says, speaking out against Miami Wilds is his proudest effort. But it was the scientists, he adds, who made it happen. 

A ‘Losing Battle’

The Center for Biological Diversity had long advocated for pine rocklands, but when Bennett thinks back to when her team first got involved with the Miami Wilds case, the word “dread” comes to mind. 

At the Center for Biological Diversity, attorneys are familiar with defending rare species — their “clients,” she likes to say — who can’t speak for themselves. But “you don’t always get a good outcome in these cases, even when you have a great interpretation of the law,” she said. It can be crushing for a court case, and then an ecosystem, to be bulldozed after spending months garnering evidence. “I’ve cried over cases like that.” 

Indeed, this wasn’t the first time the pine rocklands were up against development plans. Once upon a time, the Richmond rockland tract was much larger. For several decades, about 140 acres of it was owned by the University of Miami. In 2014, the university sold 88 acres of the land to a developer that plowed the pines to make room for a Walmart, L.A. Fitness, Starbucks, and other chain businesses. 

But the Miami Wilds issue was different. At a September 2023 Miami-Dade County commission meeting, environmental advocates noticed a shift in the usual narrative. Residents voiced their opposition to the development plans, postponing the commission’s decision on whether to extend Miami Wilds’ lease. “Up until that commission meeting, we felt like we were just fighting a losing battle,” Bayless said, especially given Miami’s tendency to prioritize development. “Everyone told us this was a lost cause.” 

Heading into the court battle against the National Park Service, on the other hand, the plaintiffs felt confident. “That dread was eventually sort of replaced with this invigoration that maybe we can actually do this,” Bennett said. 

It was a cut-and-dry example of an agency that had broken the law in the face of some serious stakes. Bennett and representatives of Tropical Audubon Society, Bat Conservation International, and the Miami Blue Chapter of the North American Butterfly Association showed up at the federal courthouse in Miami on December 11, 2023, to hear the ultimate decision. 

As the judge took the podium, they held their breath. They expected a favorable outcome, but in a world where the environment rarely wins, it was a precarious moment. 

Finally, the judge issued her ruling: The National Park Service had made an undeniable mistake. 

“The judge was just like, ‘How did you mess this up?’” said Lauren Jonaitis, senior conservation director at Tropical Audubon Society. It was the decision she expected, and yet, she felt tears welling up in her eyes and a lump in her throat. Did we actually just win? she remembers thinking. Was it successful? 

The feeling was universal. 

“It’s kind of beautiful, actually,” Bennett said. “When Congress created the Endangered Species Act, and when they created the ability for citizens to sue to enforce the Act, I like to think this is exactly what they envisioned. That’s exactly the purpose of these laws, is to be thoughtful and look before we leap.”

But it was only half the battle. Though a symbolic win for environmental protection, the court victory only invalidated the basis of the lease agreement with Miami Wilds and reinstated the original land-use restrictions, forcing the issue back into Miami-Dade County commission meetings. 

The very next day, a long line of people adorned in their bright-blue rally T-shirts wrapped around the county commission building at 7 a.m. — more than two hours before the meeting’s start. Finally, the commission declined to approve Miami Wilds’ lease modification, an ambiguous decision that left everyone wondering if it was the final nail in the coffin. Local news reports made it out to be a victory, but it wasn’t until January that the deal was formally broken: Miami Mayor Daniella Levine Cava filed an official letter to rescind the lease. 

A Win for Miami, a Win for the World

The court and commission rooms were conquered, but the battle wasn’t over. On April 15, 2024, Miami Wilds sued Miami-Dade County for damages associated with the canceled lease, accusing the mayor of “appeasing to conservation voters,” as the Miami Herald reported. It was just as conservation groups expected. (Miami Wilds CEO Paul Lambert did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the time this story was published.)

Now that the land is safe from commercialization, environmental leaders are discussing how to bolster its value. Applying for Congressional restoration funding, naming it a natural world heritage site, and turning it into an urban wildlife refuge are just a few options. It’s a unique opportunity to support nearby communities while inviting people to learn about an urban wildlife hotspot, Bennett said. “How many places can you go where you’re in this incredibly biodiverse and wild area, and then 20 minutes away, you can go have a fine dining experience in Miami?”

The effort rallied communities, fostered collaborations, and succeeded where most environmental causes don’t. But above all, the movement made pine rocklands locally and nationally recognizable. 

“All of the sudden, ‘pine rocklands’ is not a foreign term to people,” Magill said. “This is part of our heritage. You’re not gonna find this in other places.”

Now, when he drives to work at Zoo Miami, Magill smiles as he passes the area that was supposed to become a water park. He also thinks about younger generations. “I hope they can use (the win) as a template for future battles that they’re going to have with the environment,” he said, “because they’re coming.”

When Marjory Stoneman Douglas published her career-defining work, “The Everglades: River of Grass” in 1947, it sparked nationwide awareness about the value of an ecosystem now federally protected as one of our country’s 63 national parks. It’s possible that the fight to stop Miami Wilds is the equivalent for pine rocklands. 

“We are not like a Grand Canyon, where you stare out over this vista. The beauty of Florida is rarely about the big vistas,” Bennett said. “It’s about the little things: The tiny little flower that grows only in one county, or a small lizard that lives only under the tidal wrack on a beach. It’s more of a slow discovery, I think, to love Florida (rather) than this giant, breathtaking moment.”

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Marlowe Starling is a freelance environmental journalist whose work focuses on wildlife conservation, water quality, environmental health and the ways in which nature and culture intersect. Her work has appeared in Mongabay, The New York Times, Sierra Magazine, Deseret Magazine, the Miami Herald, and more. She grew up in Miami, Florida, where she relishes a serene paddle through the mangrove forests. 

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Cover image: The Richmond pine rocklands have changed ownership many times over the past century, but the land will now be set aside for environmental education and protection. Photo by Jason Matthew Walker