The previous board wanted the arboretum. The newly-elected one does not.
By Johannes Werner
Original Air Date: March 26, 2025
Host: Microforests help with cooling, with flood prevention, and with carbon sequestration. One homeowners’ association in suburban Manatee County liked the idea so much it raised tens of thousands of dollars to help plant one. But then a new board was elected, and this week, it had the three-year old microforest ripped out. We are trying to go to the root of this.
Johannes Werner: Charles Reith is an ecologist who spent much of his career at Tulane University researching resilience of the New Orleans area during and after Hurricane Katrina. One of his takeaways: Tree planting can make a big difference, and microforests can play a key role.
Microforests are a recent scientific innovation. They are designed to grow fast and provide ecological benefits such as regional cooling, flood prevention, and carbon sequestration to slow climate change.
Reith is now the driving force behind SURF, a regional coalition made up of the Sarasota Bay Rotary Club, Veterans for Common Sense, and Solutions to Avoid Red Tide. SURF has planted eight suburban microforests since 2020, with a ninth one in the making in Venice.
Charles Reith
Charles Reith: The microforests are very popular around the world. As the principal planner of microforests here in Sarasota, I am regularly approached by communities who are excited to restore the ecological health of their community and have a beautiful forest as an amenity for the residents to enjoy.
JW: In 2023, SURF and Reith planted a half-acre microforest at Heritage Harbor. That’s a suburban development tucked between Manatee River and I-75. Planted in the development’s park between a parking lot, baseball diamonds and a playground, it included trails for children to explore. It was not the biggest, but—thanks to the $40,000 the Heritage Harbor folks and SURF raised—it certainly was the most expensive of the microforests in this region.
Heritage Harbor’s microforest attracted turtles and birds. Its promoters raised $40,000.
CR: It does happen to be the most expensive for us because this organization pledged so much money but then challenged me to raise more. The overall cost was $40,000, and I was encouraged to use it all. That’s one of the reasons why the forest has spectacular signs that tell everybody what species they are seeing and even have little QR codes that make their phones—if they’re hooked up to the internet or have mobile data—open up a little description of the species. It’s like a little arboretum. It was a wonderful little arboretum park with walking trails.
JW: Michael Fischer was the president of the Homeowners’ Association at Heritage Harbor at the time. He explains:
Michael Fischer: There’s a lot of construction going on around it. When I say “construction,” I mean restaurants and additional housing, et cetera. Instead of trees, we have parking lots. We were looking ahead to the future and saying, “We need more trees and plants to put oxygen back into the air.” The big thing was they donated time and labor so that, when it came time to plant the forest, we had lots of people there volunteering. Over a hundred people came to start the planting. We had this planted within two weeks. We had turtles coming in from the water and laying eggs there, which is pretty amazing because a turtle will lay multiple eggs—many, many, many eggs—and they’re born, and they make their way back to the water. We have a lot of breeds of birds, and we saw new types of birds that we had never seen before. This thing just started off and took off like an airplane. It was fast, and we couldn’t get over how quickly things were maturing and growing.
JW: But Fischer eventually stepped back, and a new homeowners’ association board was elected. Fischer says the new board saw the microforest as weeds.
After Hurricane Milton, Reith offered to clear fallen trees. But the HOA told him it would not grant him access. Heritage Harbor then proceeded to rip out part of the microforest, and this week, it completely erased it, removing the signs.
Volunteers contributed to the planting of Heritage Harbor’s microforest. Photos: Still shots from SURF video
Fischer, the former HOA president, said that not only has it been impossible to get the expensive signs returned, but now donors want their money back.
CR: It was very poorly managed, very poorly run and very disappointing to those of us that put all this time and effort into something that was going to be wonderful for future generations.
JW: Reith is not only disappointed, but he is now thinking about creating written agreements with homeowners’ associations, which would complicate the planting of new microforests.
CR: Maybe looking forward I will seek written agreements. That gets really complicated with lawyers and deed restrictions.
JW: We repeatedly called and emailed the current board at Heritage Harbor, their management company, and the community manager of that company. We were not able to reach anyone before the deadline.
A person close to the new board said—off the record—that the microforest was voted to be removed due to being a security liability for children getting lost and the microforest was severely damaged in the last three hurricanes from 2024, so it must be removed. In its place, the Homeowners’ Association is expanding the playground.
CR: I am very disappointed that people do not appreciate how important forests and wetlands—natural habitats—are to the health of our watershed and to the management of risk associated with hurricanes. I take pride in installing these systems in retirement, knowing that I am doing my part to preserve the resilience of greater Sarasota in the face of increased hurricanes and to prevent flooding. That is the first time that I’ve had that experience. Everybody else loves them except for this board.
Reporting for WSLR News, Johannes Werner.
If you want to learn more about microforests, go to suncoastforests.org.
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