‘Great outdoors’ describes CREW lands during pandemic




George Luther, CREW Trust volunteer, leading walk at CREW’s Bird Rookery Swamp Trail.

George Luther, CREW Trust volunteer, leading walk at CREW’s Bird Rookery Swamp Trail.

Plenty of Southwest Floridians have been taking part in an “up” side to the Covid pandemic: Experiencing the mood-boosting effects of being in nature.

Looking at recent attendance figures, the staff at CREW Land & Water Trust has noticed a trend. The number of visitors to the property it stewards seems to back up what scientists are finding about the relatively new field of ecotherapy.

For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the nonprofit CREW – which stands for Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed – logged more than 90,000 people visiting the four trails on its 60,000 acres of conser­vation land. That’s way up from the previous fiscal year when 55,000 people came for a visit.

“We knew that the numbers were up, but I have to tell you I was shocked,” said Brenda Brooks, executive director.

“When they started closing the beaches down, that’s when people found CREW,” Brooks added.

For the still uninitiated, CREW also holds “Bike Around the Loop” trips twice a month around the 12-mile Bird Rookery Swamp trail. Masks are required for this program and all other organized events and they’re suggested (although not required) for individual hikers. An experienced guide leads this bike ride and sweeps are in place for anyone needing to go back before the ride is over.

As it has for years, CREW offers geocaching events. Participants armed with a smart phone with a GPS program or other GPS device go on a treasure hunt on CREW trails using coordinates to find caches. No experience is necessary to join in, but signups are required. See crewtrust.org/geocaching for more information.

The CREW Land & Water Trust was established in 1989 as a nonprofit organization to coordinate the land acquisition, land manage­ment, and public use of the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed. The CREW project spans southern Lee and northern Collier counties. It includes the Corkscrew Marsh, Bird Rookery Swamp, Flint Pen Strand, Camp Keais Strand, and Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. CREW doesn’t own the land, Brooks stressed. The South Florida Water Management District does. And that means we as taxpayers own it.

So while it’s not in your own backyard, it’s the next best thing and open sunrise to sunset for everyone. Its four trails are accessible and virtually free (a $3 per person donation is suggested and can be depos­ited in a box at the trailhead) to hikers planning their own excursions or by nominal fee to join a CREW-sponsored group, each of which has a volunteer guide and a volunteer “sweep,” who makes sure the group stays together and any unexpected situations are addressed.

Group hikes are just $5 a person. Registration online is required at crewtrust.org/events. Hikes are held from November through April on CREW Marsh Trails the first Tuesday of the month, the third Tuesday of the month at Cypress Dome Trails; Wednesdays at Bird Rookery Swamp; and Thursdays at Flint Pen Strand trails. Brooks recommends registering early as group size has been reduced due to Covid from 20 in the past to a maximum of 12 (and sometimes fewer, depending on the volunteer guide’s preference) – and CREW members can register before the general public. Information about membership is also available at crewtrust.org.

With memberships or donations, visitors to CREW lands are doing their part for conservation and also the mental health of the community.

There’s a strong connection between time spent in nature and reduced stress, anxiety and depression, according to many medical experts.

Although it’s not clear exactly how this works, researchers at Harvard compared the brain activity of healthy people after they walked for 90 minutes in either a natural setting or an urban one. Those who did a nature walk had lower activity in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region that is active during rumination — defined as repetitive thoughts that focus on negative emotions, according to Harvard Men’s Health Watch in a report from July 2018.

According to the same report, nature sounds and even outdoor silence can lower blood pressure as well as levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

Inexpensive antidotes to pandemic or other stressors aren’t far away, thanks to CREW.