After conducting a nationwide search, the Indian River Land Trust has hired island resident David Heuberger as director of land protection.
In recent years, the Land Trust has acquired 900 acres of undeveloped land on the shores of the lagoon to protect and improve wildlife habitat, preserve scenic beauty and help restore the estuary’s faltering ecosystem.
In his new role, Heuberger will lead the effort to acquire additional land and develop land management plans for existing parcels.
“Land acquisition continues to be a primary focus of the Land Trust,” he says. “But we will also be focusing more on stewardship. A lot of our properties have the potential for restoration of their biological processes and interaction with the Indian River Lagoon.”
As an example, at Winter Beach Salt Marsh, a 47-acre piece of conservation property the Land Trust picked up in 2010, Heuberger sees the potential to “restore and expand the salt marsh, reduce exotic species invasion and restore the natural hydrology of the system through correcting ditches and berms and interior dykes, allowing it to function as it did historically as an important interface between the upland watershed and the lagoon.”
Coastal wetlands have long served as the nursery of the oceans, the shifting tidal environment where fish hatch and mature before braving the open waters of the lagoon or the Atlantic.
The wetlands have lost much of their biological diversity and productivity because of impoundments that cut them off from the natural ebb and flow, pollution and other types of degradation.
Heuberger’s job is to tune them up like sputtering car engines and get them functioning efficiently again as wildlife habitat, nutrient sinks and buffers to upland development, and he comes well equipped for the task.
Educated in Florida at New College in Sarasota, where he got a degree in environmental studies with a focus in natural resources management and restoration, and at the University of Florida in Gainesville where he picked up a master’s in soil and water science, Heuberger has worked for numerous state agencies as a land, water and habitat manager and analyst.
Between New College and UF, he was park biologist at Myakka River State Park, then one of the largest state parks in Florida and still renowned for its wildlife. After the Myakka was designated a wild and scenic river, he became the Myakka Wild and Scenic River assessment biologist.
During grad school, he worked in the Ocala and Osceola National Forests, classifying wildlife habitat on the basis of soil chemistry. Master’s degree in hand, he went back to work for the state managing shellfish resources in a six-county region in the Big Bend of Florida. He also developed watershed models to predict when water quality was good enough for clams and oysters to be safe for harvest. After that came more graduate work in Invertebrate physiology within estuarine systems that resulted in a number of published scientific papers.
Heuberger moved to Vero Beach 12 years ago because the town reminded him and his wife, Dr. Liana Urfer, of Sarasota before it exploded into a major urban area.
“Since arriving, I have immersed myself in the Indian River Lagoon,” Heuberger says.
His most recent plunge was a job with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection revising 20-year-old management plans for five aquatic preserves in the lagoon between the Banana River and West Palm Beach.
He became acquainted with the Land Trust while doing that work and was impressed enough that he jumped at the chance to work for the organization. “I am amazed at what this small staff has been able to produce just in the last few years, and I am also blown away at the community support and the success of the effort to save view-sheds, watersheds and wildlife habitat.”
“While we were out there looking for a director of land protection, we thought it was important to find somebody with a very strong background in land management and understanding biological processes critical to improving water quality and the lagoon,” says Land Trust Executive Director Ken Grudens. “We are really excited to have Dave onboard given his background and experience. I think he is going to help us make great strides in the work we have ahead of us.”
“I am grateful to be here and I think we will be able to make a real difference for the lagoon,” Heuberger says.