Gathering at a trailhead off Alligator Alley Saturday morning, about 40 people stood in a large circle, heads bowed.
They were listening to Betty Osceola, an elder with the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, give a prayer near the southern end of the Florida Trail.
The group was about to embark on a southbound hike, following a marked trail through wet prairies, pinewood flats and dwarf cypresses. The journey, about four miles in and four miles back, is an effort to inform and educate the public on Burnett Oil Co.’s permits to begin exploratory drilling in Big Cypress National Preserve.
The company filed four applications with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection on Jan. 22 to begin constructing the pads in one of the nation’s first national preserves. The company previously undertook seismic exploration projects in the preserve in 2017 prompting a legal battle the oil company ultimately won.