Straining to put on a brave face after a brutal week of citizen outrage and unusually negative headlines, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis all but terminated the life of his embryonic park development project Wednesday.

“(FDEP) is going back to the drawing board. We’re not doing anything this year”, the term-limited governor who leaves office in 2026, told reporters during an unrelated news conference.

WPTV in West Palm Beach quotes the Governor saying the following:

‘I am totally fine to just do nothing and do no improvements,’ DeSantis says. ‘If that’s what the general public wants, then that’s fine with me. This was something that was leaked. It was not approved by me. I never saw that,” DeSantis said. “They’re going back to the drawing board. … I’d rather not spend any money on this. If people don’t want improvements then don’t do it.”

The question that confronted the governor was hardly unexpected. “What are you doing to our state parks?”, as reported by a jubilant Florida Wildlife Federation (FWF), and confirmed by the Tampa Bay Times.

In an emailed bulletin to its members, the federation triumphantly declared “State Parks Stay Wild This Year”.

DeSantis’ anticipated retreat came in the face of angry statewide opposition to this latest phase of the Great Outdoors Initiative, calling for introducing 350-room hotels, pickleball courts and golf onto the pristine natural preserves of nine Florida State Parks, including St. Augustine’s Anastasia State Park, where Sunday morning protestors waving placards and passing drivers blaring horns signaled opposition to the plan.

While DeSantis derided his own plan as “half-baked and not ready for prime time,” it was launched by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection at the governor’s initiative.

The Florida Wildlife Federation said nearly 250-thousand emails were responsible for “slowing down the fast-tracked plan to sell out our state parks”. It also credited “the rapid and overwhelming response from the public, community groups, Florida businesses, and bipartisan unity from state elected officials who opposed these plans”, calling the effort “nothing short of historic”.