Planting of trees near Everglades will offset carbon from football game

November 13, 2008

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With the help of 200 trees, 30 workers and one eco-minded organization, the University of Florida will play a carbon-neutral game against the University of South Carolina this Saturday.

About 30 volunteers and staffers from the West Palm Beach-based Arthur R. Marshall Foundation, which helps restore and preserve the greater Everglades ecosystem, will spend the morning of the game planting native trees on Torry Island, a 700-acre wetland near Belle Glade.

The effort is part of the Neutral Gator Initiative, a program co-sponsored by UF’s Office of Sustainability, which aims to offset carbon emissions from UF’s 2008 football season home games.

Over the next few decades, the trees planted will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to neutralize the carbon produced from the game, Neutral Gator co-founder Jacob Cravey said. So far, all of UF’s home games have been carbon-neutral.

Much of UF’s carbon emissions have been offset by local light bulb exchanges in low-income communities, where Gainesville residents turned in their old incandescent bulbs for energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs. Other games have been neutralized by reforestation, and solar energy projects are in the works, Cravey said.

“We’ve had a lot of support from the school and the Gator Nation,” he said.

Cravey, who created the nonprofit organization Earth Givers that manages Neutral Gator, said the benefit from this game will be twofold. The tree-planting will offset carbon production from the game while raising awareness about the Everglades. The Everglades, which Cravey said are in decline and need restoration, are one of Florida’s most recognizable ecosystems.

“It’s a wonderfully creative way to focus people’s attention on global warming antidotes and the role of Everglades restoration in mitigating sea level rise. We’re proud to be a part of it,” said John Marshall, chairman for the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation. Both John Marshall and his uncle Arthur, for whom the foundation is named, graduated from the University of Florida.

“We are also very pleased that our Arthur R. Marshall Summer Internship Graduates who are environmental science majors at UF are participating,” Marshall said. “They will act as Everglades subject-matter experts and ‘tour guides’ at the Neutral Gator booth at the game.”

For more information, contact Dedee DeLongpré Johnston, UF’s director of sustainability, at dedee@ufl.edu, Jacob Cravey at jacob@neutralgator.org, or Susanna Laurenti, director of communications for the Marshall Foundation, at susanna.laurenti@artmarshall.com.