By Tom Flanigan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-987871.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – What's an "atlas"? It's often defined as a big, boring book of obscure facts that few people ever use. But Tom Flanigan reports that may not hold true for the just-published "Atlas of Florida's Natural Resources", which could become a best-seller.
The new book is by no means the first Atlas focused on Florida's environment. Gary Knight who directs the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, says such books have been around for quite awhile.
"The Florida Resources and Environmental Analysis Center - FREAC' - over the last 30-years has prepared several atlases going back to 1981 they did an atlas of Florida and they also did a water atlas."
Knight has special kudos for a particular member of the FREAC team.
"We credit Lou Cross who's the design editor for the project and it was just a real joy for us to work with Lou in terms of taking our ideas we tried to think of them with a graphic concept in mind, but to take it from the data and the information to the visual design that Lou Cross was able to help us develop was just a real treat because to see those ideas flesh out the way they did was a fun part of this project."
Meanwhile, over at FREAC, Director Jim Anderson also has props for his project partners over at Gary Knight's shop.
"We had a head start in that the Florida Natural Areas Inventory maintains a lot of this data, not only on a statewide basis but in individual study areas that they do; plant and animal inventories and that all goes into the database."
Special mention here for the Inventory's Project Editor Jon Oetting. He was, if you'll pardon the expression, the "Atlas of the atlas", doing much of the heavy lifting if you will and coordinating the work between the two organizations. But what does the book itself look like? By any yardstick, the hard cover edition of the Atlas of Florida's Natural Resources would look right at home on any coffee table. The photography and graphics are top-notch. Its one-hundred-sixty pages are packed with fascinating facts and delightful data. Want to know which areas of the state are most threatened by development? The atlas will tell you. Where are you most likely to find manatees at various times of the year? There are colorful maps to show you. Florida Resources and Environmental Analysis Center Director Jim Anderson says there's nothing like it anywhere else in the country.
"Other states have done partial type things where they've done just the plant thing or just the animal, that type of thing but not the whole comprehensive approach we wanted to take."
The Atlas of Florida's Natural Resources is bound to be a sure-fire hit with researchers and environmental professionals. But Gary Knight says the idea was to make the book appealing to a much broader population.
"Well, one of the things we wanted to accomplish with the atlas was to inspire interest and enthusiasm in Florida's bio-diversity and make people more aware of what we've got in the state and also some of the conservation planning that's going on and some of the challenges that the state faces so to make available this information to a general audience."
And, even if it doesn't make the New York Times best-seller list, Jim Anderson thinks people will buy it...
"I think we could sell probably 15-to-20 thousand if we could get them out to where people saw them and we're going to be opening up several venues for them to be able to purchase it if we can get it into, let's say, Barnes and Noble or some places like that, then I think that when people can actually see the book they'll be attracted to it."
Gary Knight says the atlas can be ordered on the web.
"Right now, the information to order is available online at 'Floridasnaturalheritage.org.".
That's also where you can go to check out a video about the atlas produced by our broadcast colleague Mike Plummer at our sister operation WFSU-TV.