Remembering Ed Carlson, environmental leader, visionary in Naples area

By Chad Gillis | Naples Daily News

The Naples area lost one of its great environmental activists and ecological minds when longtime Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary director Ed Carlson passed on Dec. 9.

Carlson, 75, was the director of Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary from 1983 until he retired in 2012, when he was given the title of director emeritus.

He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Jo Ann, children Amelia and Kristofer, and grandchildren Lilly, Haley, Jaxon, Cole, Brynley, and Easton.

Known for his enormous personality and stature (he stood 6 feet, 5 and 1/2 inches), Carlson spent most of his life clearing land of invasive plants and restoring the oldest old growth cypress strand in North America.

He raised millions of dollars for the restoration of the sanctuary's world-famous boardwalk.

Actually, he helped drive many of the original pilings with his big feet.

"Ed was so steady and so consistent and so loving and so caring and super intelligent," said his wife Jo Ann Carlson, 73. "He was the kind of guy who had a vision of the future and what it should be, and he really tried to mold that. Ed was not anti-development. He wanted to save the reasons why everybody came here and not destroy it."

Carlson was the initial visionary behind the enormously successful Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed, or CREW, an aquifer recharge area that has immense stretches of native wild Florida habitat and open cow fields.

CREW grew from Carlson's mind, apparently out of a dream.

"Ed woke me up at 3 o'clock in the morning, and it was a dream I think was sent by God," Jo Ann said. "He woke me up and said 'Honey, I have to wake you up.'"

Carlson and other researchers had just completed a series of maps of Naples-area aquifers.

Those aquifers provide the drinking water for the growing Naples population.

At the time there were about 40,000 people living in Collier County, but Carlson saw the immense development that would come in spurts over the next 30 years.

An ecological visionary, Jo Ann said Carlson was able to anticipate the drinking water needs of Naples for today and the future.

The Carlsons met the summer of 1970



"The Conservancy jumped on board," Jo Ann said. "Ed had a vision. He wasn't short-sighted. He knew what was coming to Naples. Ed was never unreasonable. He just said, 'let's be smart' and he knew where the wetlands were that needed to be preserved and that's him looking at a map and looking at every square inch of the land."

They met on June 9, 1970, at the University of South Florida.

"Ed was a transfer student from the University of Miami," she said. "We stood in all types of lines for 14 hours during student orientation. He was behind me all day long and it was only 400 kids that were going to be on campus that summer."

Was it love at first site?

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"It sort of was for him," she said with a laugh. "There was a guy's dorm and a girl's dorm and we'd hang out around the pool, and I was 100 pounds and wearing a bikini with hair down to my waist and he was this 6-foot, 5-inch kind of geeky guy, (but) I wanted a bad boy."

By all accounts, Carlson was no bad boy.

"We hung out in groups together and in the summer, he'd go to Corkscrew, and he'd write me letters," Jo Anne said. "We were friends at first, and he dated the girl down the hall. It took me about two years and I went, 'Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You missed something here.' We dated for three months and then we got married. I found someone I could live with."

Jo Anne on life with Ed Carlson: 'If it ran across our yard, we ate it'



They lived a modest life at the sanctuary, but Carlson managed to put the person he loved on the land he cherished.

Collier County was still a little wild in the 1970s, and the Carlsons largely lived on the land for a few years.

"If it ran across our yard, we ate it," Jo Ann said. "Even armadillos until I researched it and did a deep dive at the library and I found out that armadillos can carry the leprosy virus. So, we stopped eating them, but they really made pretty good gumbo."

Ed Carlson was 'a Florida boy'



Mike Duever, featured in our recent series on the Big Cypress National Preserve and Alligator Alcatraz, was running Corkscrew Swamp when Carlson was in college.

"Ed was a Florida boy," Duever said. "I remember he loved hurricanes because the surf near Miami would be really good."

Duever saw the potential in Carlson almost immediately, luring him back to the swamp, where he had interned years earlier.

"He loved Corkscrew," Duever said. "He really, really loved Corkscrew. He was absolutely the perfect person to take over at Corkscrew because he cared so much about it and knew so much about it. And he was able to keep the shop running. He did a lot of fundraising, and he was good at it."

Carlson wrote his own obituary



Ever the over-achiever, Carlson wrote his own obituary a few weeks ago.

"I lived my life as an Audubon Warden," he wrote. "I received my first standing Egret shoulder patch in 1968 at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Highly revered, it represented the dedication of the Wardens since their inception in 1900."

Calson talked about the recovery of the alligator at Corkscrew Swamp and spoke of poachers targeting the preserve.

"Then my beloved wood storks were listed," he wrote. "The fight to save their historic feeding areas continues. Today, I take satisfaction in having lived my life protecting God's creations. ... It's been a pleasure."

More: Audubon's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary getting $20M makeover for 2026

Jason Lauritsen, chief conservation officer for the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation, worked for Carlson for several years.

"I walked the boardwalk, applied for an internship and kept coming back because of Ed," Lauritsen said. "His affection, knowledge and passion for Corkscrew was infectious."

Lauritsen served as director of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary from 2012 to 2018.

Carlson helped grow today's generation of ecological advocates



He met Carlson in the 1980s.

"At the time he lived on site," Lauritsen said. "At that time, I got a chance to be 100 feet from where he and his kids lived, and I came back a few summers later and interned again. There was a little patch of sugar cane, and they lived a really wild life in the swamp."

Lauritsen said he's honored to follow a similar path as Carlson did.

"He had the ability to appreciate the granular values in the swamp while realizing the change that was happening on the landscape," Lauritsen said. "Ed bridged generations. He had that Audubon warden mentality. He staked a claim to being a warden and steward on this piece of ground. He looked at the swamp as something that was sacred and special."

More: Ghost orchids and panthers: Corkscrew Swamp has a lot to offer in the Naples area

Carlson was also among the esteemed south Floridians who were selected to be part of the Guardians of the Everglades exhibit.

"The very first person we approached was Ed," said photographer and artist Connie Barrow. "I can't tell you exactly when I met him because I feel like I always knew him because we had this great fondness for the wild."

Carlson was known as a rugged intellect

Barrow is a close family friend.

"We went out 10 or a dozen times on the swamp buggy and he'd just go on and on about how beautiful and there was nothing about that place that he didn't adore and know a great amount about," she said. "As a photographer, he and I got along beautifully. He was a big thinker. Although he was an outdoor, rugged man's-man, he was quite the intellect as well."

Jo Ann described her departed husband as a tough, rugged intellect.

"You could turn him around 50 times blindfolded and hand him a knife and he would make it out," Jo Ann said. "He would live. Way cool guy. Ed led by example. A lot of people try to tell people what to do, and they think they're a leader. But you don't teach people by telling them. You show them or have them do it."

She said her husband left a lasting mark on the Naples area.

"We were soulmates, and I did everything I could to support him," she said. "Everything at Corkscrew is Ed. The boardwalk, the parking lots, everything."

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Remembering Ed Carlson, environmental leader, visionary in Naples area.