MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – Wednesday marks three years since Local 10 News first launched Don’t Trash Our Treasure.
Over the past year, we have introduced you to more than 50 environmental heroes who are fighting to make a difference and engage us all to do more to save the planet.
But in honor of our special anniversary, we are revisiting three extraordinary people and recognizing them as our Most Treasured Citizens 2024.
Colin Foord
Co-Founder Coral Morphologic, Coral City Camera
On a mission to save the planet’s fast-disappearing coral reefs and bring them back, marine biologist and coral guru Colin Foord is a Most Treasured Citizen.
“It provides that hope that there are corals and there are places that did survive, that can be protected,” Foord said as he came back to the surface from a dive. “This reef for whatever reason is fully recovered, it didn’t see any active disease…the corals look really healthy.”
Foord is referring to Cosmic Reef, an artificial reef that was created by Miami-Dade County’s Department of Environmental Resources Management in 1996. DERM created the reef by deploying big piles of limestone riprap boulders into the ocean about two miles offshore from the South Beach coastline.
Local 10 News Environmental Advocate and Anchor Louis Aguirre joined Foord to survey the corals onboard Diver’s Paradise namesake vessel, after taking off from Key Biscayne.
“We’re going to see a lot of healthy corals,” Foord explained ahead of the dive. “We were out here last month with Reef Corps and couldn’t believe just how healthy everything was”
South Florida’s reefs are still reeling from what was the worst coral bleaching event ever documented. Thousands of corals were lost, after the hottest summer on record.
Last June, Foord was one of the first people to sound the alarm of the devastation that would soon to follow. But almost a year later, the resilient corals that survived are giving Foord much hope for the future.
“We saw brain corals, cactus corals, all kinds of sea fans, gorgonians,” Foord reflected.
Foord is the co-founder of Coral Morphologic and co-creator of the Coral City Camera, engaging a worldwide audience to participate in this critical mission to save our ocean.
“It’s a sign of hope,” Foord said as he marveled at the health of the corals he saw on the dive. “I think that the corals living on these reefs could be the future parents of the resilient corals of tomorrow that are going to be able to replant corals, and restore reefs of South Florida.”
Xavier Cortada
Artist, Founder of The Underwater
Community-led climate action, Artist Xavier Cortada is a Most Treasured Citizen.
Cortada is the creator of The Underwater, an evolving installation to show South Floridians their risk of sea level rise.
“In 2018, in my neighborhood, I engaged thousands of residents in putting yard signs in front of their homes with numbers on them, that literally told their neighbors how many feet above sea level their homes were these yard signs were everywhere,” Cortada explained. “It was my way of allowing neighbors to understand our vulnerability to the rising seas so they can get together and do something about it.”
In 2022, Cortada became Miami-Dade County’s first Artist in Residence. Later he expanded his project to include permanent elevation markers in county parks.
“And just this February, we brought it (The Underwater) to Broward County,” Cortada said.
Since heading north, Cortada has engaged the community and worked with students from five schools to paint murals showing their elevation.
“We’re going to continue doing that with schools across the county,” Cortada explained. “We also have this wonderful bus that we wrapped, it’s going to be a moving exhibit going around, people can scan it and find out their own home elevation.”
The journey has taken Cortada beyond South Florida as he’s toured the country to share the project, even making his way to the White House.
“I want all of us to understand that we are creative beings and that we have a role, we have a voice,” he reflected. “The power of art is to shape culture, to transform the way we think, the way we behave, the way we see ourselves the way we are.”
Alexa Simeone
Teacher, Founder of Sea Lab by Lele Art Lab
Education through experience, the founder of the Sea Lab Alexa Simeone is a Most Treasured Citizen.
We last saw the Sea Lab students when they swam in the open ocean for the first time and made marine-inspired art.
“Last year, we ran our pilot program to go ahead and bring ocean exploration to our community in Deerfield Beach,” Simeone explained.
This year the students traded their snorkels for slogging shoes, to experience the Everglades at Sawgrass Recreation Park.
“We were able to really become citizen scientists, we had an airboat ride, where we went ahead and did our water quality testing, [and] we learned about the slough,” Simeone reflected. “We were able to now merge the sea experience with the freshwater experience of learning what it is that we have in our own backyard.”
After our last story aired, the City of Deerfield Beach Teen Center renewed the Sea Lab for a second year. The program also received a grant from Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots program.
The support is critical to help bring science to students who are often overlooked.
“I’ve always loved like, sea animals and nature and I wanted to explore, but I never found the place to do so,” Sea Lab student Prisca Edie said. “Sea Lab is where I can, is obviously a place where I can do that.”
“We have these frontline communities here in South Florida, many of their the visibility that we’ve seen has been of agency hasn’t been of empowerment,” explained Simeone. “But now when what we do is empower the students to have their voice and have their community be a part of that voice.”
Learn More About These Missions
If you’d like to support or learn more about the efforts of our Most Treasured Citizens, visit the links below.
Coral Morphologic - https://www.coralmorphologic.com/
Coral City Camera - https://www.coralcitycamera.com/
The Underwater - https://cortada.com/art2022/underwater/
Sea Lab - https://www.sealabscience.com/
Deerfield Beach Teen Center - https://www.deerfield-beach.com/1302/Teen-Center
Past Most Treasured Citizens
2022 - https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/04/20/shining-a-light-on-south-florida-eco-heroes/