Volunteers plant thousands of mangroves in north Cape

Keep Lee County Beautiful Inc., an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, sponsored the Mangrove Mania event in which nearly 200 volunteers planted 10,000 red mangrove propagules ("seeds") in the Matlacha Pass Aquatic Preserve in north Cape Coral.

Under the direction of geologist David Scott of Marine Forest Research in Cape Coral, the chairman of the engineering and operations committee of the LCEC Board of Directors (15 years) and board member of Keep Lee County Beautiful (17 years), the planting is meant to stabilize the shoreline of the preserve and to help return the area to its natural ecological balance.

Florida Master Naturalist Jim Niehaus said that, "Restoration is the greatest gift man can give to nature. The rewards are huge. Mangroves provide habitat for birds, fish and oysters, and oysters are an indicator species. If they are here, we know the water is good quality."