The Florida Senate

582.02  Lands a basic asset of state.--The farm, forest and grazing lands of the state are among the basic assets of the state and the preservation of these lands is necessary to protect and promote the health, safety, and general welfare of its people; improper land use practices have caused and have contributed to, and are now causing and contributing to a progressively more serious erosion of the farm and grazing lands of this state by fire, wind and water; the breaking of natural grass, plant, and forest cover has interfered with the natural factors of soil stabilization, causing loosening of soil and exhaustion of humus, and developing a soil condition that favors erosion; the top soil is being burned, washed and blown out of fields and pastures; there has been an accelerated washing of sloping fields; these processes of erosion by fire, wind and water speed up with removal of absorptive topsoil, causing exposure of less absorptive and less protective but more erosive subsoil; failure by any landowner or occupier to conserve the soil and control erosion upon her or his lands causes destruction by burning, washing and blowing of soil and water from her or his lands onto other lands and makes the conservation of soil and control erosion of such other lands difficult or impossible.

History.--s. 2, ch. 18144, 1937; CGL 1940 Supp. 4151(473); s. 924, ch. 97-103.