The project includes partnership with the Pure Water Wilderness Dixie-Gilchrist-Levy Tourist Development Board, which has successfully established the identity of the region and done much to portray the area's unique sense of place. Additional funding is provided through the State of Florida's "Culture Builds Florida" initiative, a ground-breaking program to encourage projects that combine economic development, tourism and cultural and heritage assets. The $25,000 grant awarded to Florida's Eden for this project was one of only four grants the state was able to fund out of the more than forty qualifying projects submitted state-wide.
 
The trail project is based on national asset-based economic development strategies which preserve environmental and cultural treasures by valuing them as core economic assets. The tri-county region, known as the Pure Water Wilderness is a remarkably pristine environment renowned for its freshwater springs, thousands of acres of conservation lands along the Lower Suwannee River, coastal wetlands, estuaries, and Gulf coast shoreline. This Pure Water Wilderness is poised to become a proactive model, fully aware that the area can prosper by engaging residents and visitors to value and preserve the natural environment. This economic strategy takes full advantage of current state and national tourism trends which clearly show nature-based, heritage, and cultural tourism as the fastest growing tourism sectors, quickly outpacing theme parks.
 
"Trends clearly show that 70% of travelers now want a vacation in nature; they want to stay in real places and meet real people," says Annie Pais, Executive Director of Florida's Eden, "Visitors want to get off the commercial beaten track and go home with stories about how they discovered something new for themselves. The local residents of this Pure Water Wilderness offer the kind of genuine experiences which will emotionally satisfy this fast growing sector of our population. The public will fall in love with this area and become invested in helping to preserve it for many generations." 
 
Florida's Eden is a non-profit citizen initiative working to build a sustainable economy throughout a thirty county region of North Florida.  Florida's Eden works closely with cultural organizations, environmental groups, community colleges, chambers of commerce, and tourism development councils. In partnership with Pure Water Wilderness, Florida's Eden seeks participation from local businesses, the media, small towns, naturalists, historians, storytellers, musicians and artists. Contact and project information can be found online at www.FloridasEden.org.
 
 
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