Everglades National Park is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. And now the U.S. Postal Service will honor it with a setting-sun photograph of pinelands and grasses as the sixth of 16 Forever Stamp images to be revealed over a three-week period to celebrate the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary. The stamp was previewed in Washington, D.C. on Monday.
"I took the photo in the pine rocklands," Miami photographer Paul Marcellini told Sunshine State News. "It's one of the most unique and endangered habitats in our part of the world. Once there were 200,000 acres, now there are 20,000. That's all we have left."
Speaking to SSN in a telephone interview Monday morning, Marcellini explained that pine rocklands are the high ground in tropical coastal areas, found in the Everglades, in the Florida Keys and in the Bahamas. "They were the first land areas to be developed. They were perfect, unfortunately, high ground with ready timber on site."
Marcellini, 31, a professional photographer with a degree in environmental science, has nurtured a lifelong love affair with the Florida Everglades. Right out of college in 2008 he won the Grand Prize in the Outdoor Photographer Magical Adventure contest, a $10,000 photoshoot trip to Kenya.
"I won with a picture I took just a few hundred yards from where I took the shot for the postage stamp," he remembered. "It was of a man-made lake. I was running from an approaching storm and I caught the light on the water just right. ..."
"Boy, did that trip to Kenya do it for me," he said. "I was hooked. I knew I wanted to be a professional photographer."
But as the recession set in, Marcellini had to ply his craft gently. He went to work running ecotours for Miami-Dade County until 2011, when he established himself as a full-time professional photographer.
He said the Postal Service did pay him a licensing fee, "but I'm not sure I'm at liberty to disclose how much that was. I would have to read over the agreement I signed again."
Spanning the South Florida peninsula from Miami to Naples and south to the Florida Keys, Everglades National Park’s 1.5 million acres of sawgrass prairies, tropical hardwood hammocks, pine rocklands, mangrove forests and marine and estuarine waters provide habitat for a wildlife spectacle like no other. Crocodiles, alligators, manatees, flamingos, herons and turtles are just a small sampling of wildlife that can be seen here. Check out this link for more information about the park.
Other National Park Forever Stamps previewed to date include Acadia National Park and Arches National Park, Assateague Island National Seashore, Bandelier National Monument and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.
Marcellini said he thinks Everglades park rangers will schedule a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the park June 2, same day the main first-day ceremony for the National Parks Forever Stamps will take place at New York City’s Javits Center, at 11 a.m., as part of World Stamp Show-NY 2016.
World Stamp Show-NY 2016 is set for May 28–June 4, according to the USPS. Held only once a decade, this mega event attracts beginners through advanced stamp collectors. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
