Every day Bill Belleville lives his philosophy, taught to him by his parents at an early age: “If you are treated nice, then be nice back.”
Growing up in Salisbury on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, Belleville recalls the hours of pleasure he got from playing in the woods near his childhood home. Mother Nature was good to him and he has spent his life returning the favor. Words are his strongest, most effective tools.
“Nature has always been good to me and I am doing what I can in return,” Belleville said. “Good information is the best tool anyone can have to attain their goals.”
Belleville is an award-winning author and filmmaker, and an environmentalist. He has authored five books, written thousands of articles and produced several documentaries. He has participated in expeditions around the world. And he always returns to Florida, his adopted home since the 1970s.
When I first met Belleville, he lived behind the Sanford Mall in Seminole County in an old Florida “cracker” house built in the 1920s. He had just returned from the Discovery Voyage to Cuba sponsored by the Discovery Channel. Belleville had been invited to join the crew of mostly scientists. He did plenty of diving and served as the ship’s journalist, providing first-hand written accounts on the Discovery Channel Web site. And he ate lobster with a recipe Fidel Castro had recommended when he met the expeditionary crew in Havana. Out of that two month expedition came Belleville’s book “Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition.”
Soon after, development in that area took many of the homes there, including Belleville’s. He chronicles that experience in his book “Losing It All to Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape.” The book has earned many positive reviews and the Al Burt Award for excellence in journalism from the 1000 Friends of Florida.
When I interviewed Belleville earlier this year, he was in his “new” home in Sanford, a pine structure built in the late 1940s. We sat in a comfortable, enclosed area in the backyard surrounded by live oak trees covered in Spanish moss and resurrection fern. After our interview, Belleville was scheduled to appear as a guest lecturer at an environmental ethics class at Rollins College in Winter Park.
Belleville lectures at many universities and learning institutions and also appears before special interest groups, including the Florida Humanities Council. In true Florida fashion, his approach is laid back and relaxed. But the message is serious. His goal is to provide information.
“I give them the information they need to make good choices for conservation,” Belleville said. “I’m not trying to persuade them one way or another but to present facts and information, and they can draw their own conclusions. I want to lead them to a place where they are open to new ideas. I want people to go out and see for themselves.”
One of the ideas is “sense of place,” a recurring theme in Belleville’s writings, his books, articles, documentaries, everything. The goal is stated on equinoxdocumentaries.org, a non-profit film company he co-founded: “It’s the goal of Equinox to examine the ways in which nature influences people and creates a sense of place. We feel connecting with nature is key to building an ethic for it.”
His latest Equinox documentary film, “In Marjorie’s Wake,” retraces the 1933 journey on the St. John’s River by Pulitzer Prize-winning Florida author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The project was five years in the making and is scheduled for release in March on PBS. Belleville recounts the experience in his new book “Rediscovering Rawlings, a River and Time.”
Belleville explains that he is not against development. There can be balance between development and preservation, he said, but people need to understand that it is a long process that requires patience and perseverance. One of Florida’s great success stories is the protection of the Wekiva River Basin through the efforts of the Friends of the Wekiva.
“They started their efforts in the early 1980s,” Belleville said. “Armed with good information they were able to go to lawmakers and get this done.”
Another good program, he said, is Forever Florida, which allows for the public purchase of land. About $300 million is generated by the state each year for this purpose.
“We are running out of land and water; in about 50 years Florida will be built out,” he said. “Forever Florida is one solution.
“It also makes good economic sense to sustain the water supply. There’s a huge economic value to be gained by keeping our landscape intact. Many people are deluded about what is really going on. They do not look at long-term sustainability of the environment. If development is done right, it will pay off for everyone.”
Belleville has his work cut out for him but forges on with no plans to quit. The search for “place” continues for all of us.
“I hear about people looking forward to retiring but that’s not for me,” he said. “Why should I retire; I love what I do.”
Books by Bill Belleville
River of Lakes: A Journey on Florida’s St. Johns River
Deep Cuba: The Inside Story of an American Oceanographic Expedition
Sunken Cities, Sacred Cenotes, and Golden Sharks: Travels of a Water-Bound Adventurer
Losing It All to Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape
Rediscovering Rawlings, a River and Time.
Belleville’s books are available through Amazon.com and at the Maya Independent Bookstore in Sanford. For more information, visit www.billbelleville.com and www.equinoxdocumentaries.org.
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