It's too bad Marco Rubio doesn't seem to have much interest in others' opinions. The cocksure 36-year-old House speaker could learn a lot about the importance of natural Florida from former Gov. Bob Martinez.

Martinez, a Republican like Rubio, launched the visionary state program to buy wilderness lands in 1991. He understood the value of saving Florida's natural heritage - its rivers and springs, beaches and mangrove islands, cypress swamps and pinewoods. And he knew many beautiful and important resources would be preserved only if the public acquired them. Yet he also thought it wrong to regulate away the use of land.
"You might save wetlands on land, but the rest would be developed," he says. "The wildlife and wilderness values would be lost. I thought the greater value to the public was to keep the whole tract intact."

The program - originally Preservation 2000, now Florida Forever - spends $300 million a year on land acquisition. It has been hugely popular and successful, saving more than 2 million acres. The program motivated more than 25 counties to create similar local programs that often split acquisition costs with the state. Subsequent governors Lawton Chiles, Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist have all enthusiastically championed land preservation.

But now Rubio is seeking to destroy Martinez's conservation masterpiece. His budget-cutting minions plan to kill funding for Florida Forever. And to further emphasize their contempt for the environment, they also want to strip Everglades restoration funding from the budget.

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Though the program spends up to $300 million a year on land acquisition, the money is bonded and the state payment is about $25 million a year. So it is not as if the state can't afford the program.
Both Gov. Crist and the Senate include funds for Florida Forever and the Everglades in their budgets. State revenues are down, to be sure. But a 7 percent drop does not justify jettisoning Florida's two most important environmental programs.
"What's important is the commitment, that the money will be spent over time," Martinez says. "You want to protect the concept or landowners will not see this as a reliable program."

Instead, Rubio signals landowners there may soon be no alternative to developers' offers.

Moreover, the federal government is likely to give up partnering with Florida on reviving the Everglades if lawmakers abandon the effort that will restore a natural water flow to the River of Grass, help protect South Florida's water supply and clean up polluted runoff that that drains into estuaries on both coasts.
The Senate and Gov. Crist should demand the House restore funding for Florida Forever and the Everglades. And voters should remember the House members who support this scheme. Florida residents will forever lament the state's shortsightedness if Rubio has his way.