The turtles that flipper up onto the beach at the Disney Vero Beach Resort, each summer, are not made of space-age plastic, nor are they powered by some high-tech wizardry. They are the real McCoy, females, mostly loggerheads, returning to a nesting area these great sea creatures and their ancestors have used since long before man began reshaping the Florida coastline with pink-walled high-rises.

"We monitor the beach here in conjunction with environmental organizations," says Denise Leeming, the staffer who took me on a tour of the property, her title "cast member," typically Disneyesque. However, aside from the requisite images of cartoon characters scattered about the property, including just about everything in the gift shop, there's a lot about this particular Disney property that is untypical.

My balconied room looked out toward the beach, a thicket of sea flora between the manicured grounds of the resort and the waterline, stretching the entire length of the Disney property, left in place to help maintain the environment in its natural state. The foliage did obstruct the view of the beach, but it reinforced the company's commitment to the state of nature here. Nonetheless, the view of the night sky above the coastline and the sound of the waves smacking against the shore made for a very pleasant experience.

Perhaps this un-Disneyesque Disney property could serve as a symbol for Indian River County. Amid the burgeoning growth along the east coast of Florida, there are projects in place here to maintain the priceless natural beauty.

George Bunnell, a trustee at the Environmental Learning Center had spent his business career selling marine components, which is what helped introduce him to the coastal beauty of the Vero Beach area. However, when he got involved with the creation of the ELC on a 53-acre stretch of dredging spoil along the coast, hard selling had to yield to soft-sell diplomacy in order to bring the level of shouting down between the area's environmental and commercial interests, the latter principally citrus growers, who are so important to the economic base of Indian River County. He and his colleagues convinced the environmental organizations to turn down the rhetoric, then showed the growers that they were indeed stewards of the community where they, too, made their homes.

Clearly it takes money to return a big pile of dredging spoil to some sort of natural setting and Bunnell felt he had a potential source for that. "We've got retired CEOs down here like cordwood," he says with a wry smile that must have won him a contract or two during his selling days. "I reminded them that it was the quality of life here that attracted them in the first place. We needed to do things to maintain that quality. They bought in, opened their pocketbooks."

Despite the relatively small size of the plot, it comprises four ecosystems: beach, estuary, dry dunes and freshwater marshland. Invasive alien plant life, like Australian pine and Brazilian pepper, have been eradicated and replaced by indigenous plants - shrubs, mangroves, even large trees like live and laurel oaks - in effect creating a coastal hammock.

Among the facilities at the center are labs, exhibit space and a meeting room, a reception area and gift shop. The center conducts programs that are part of the school requirements for local school children in grades one, three and four. Foci of the program include the web of life, natural cycles, homes and habitat for wildlife, observations at the lagoon and more. They are highlights of the school year for children. http://indian-river.fl.us/elc.

When a developer walked in the door at the at the University of Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory on the Intracoastal Waterway and announced to Richard Baker, the director at the time, that they were about to become neighbors since the developer would be building condos on a huge stretch right on the water just north of the lab . . . he had no inkling of the alarm bells he'd set off.

"That area is unique," Baker said, "an ancient hammock."

Baker has an understated way about him, but underestimation would be a serious mistake. With aerial photos showing the intensity of development over the decades, he makes his case with a visitor why keeping part of the area undeveloped is critical. It would surprise no one who knew him that he was victorious at keeping the development at bay.

A walk through the landscape, known locally as the Oslo Riverfront Conservation Area or ORCA, demoed why it is so valuable. Along the trail there are huge live oaks, hung with beards of moss, limbs laced with resurrection fern; also scrub and sand oak; below the canopy, saw palmetto, mint, wild coffee. The 150-year-old slash pine in the woods is the national champion, almost 70 feet tall, with a crown more than 65 feet wide, a trunk diameter of 44". A great horned owl has nested in the crook.

Birding is significant, more than 250 species, including owls, hawks, bald eagle, osprey; herons, ibises, egrets, anhingas, pelicans; multiple species of songbirds.

An interesting tandem to the wild lands of ORCA, is the recreated McKee Botanical Garden, right off U.S. 1 in Vero Beach. Touring the grounds with executive director Janet Alford is a trip back in time with a woman who is very much a part of today. A third-generation Floridian, Alford moved from the Orlando area to take on the reestablishment of McKee, one of Florida's most popular tourist attractions from the 1930s to the 1970s. Just a few moments in Alford's universe and you are aware of her level of energy and how infectious it can be. She doesn't simply point out the remarkable collection of flora or the wonderfully sculptured gardens with their paths, trickling rock-fountains and meandering waterways, she literally sings their praises. You realize with someone like her at the helm, McKee had to happen. The beautiful collection of water lilies, stands of stately palms, exotic plants from all over the world are a delight to anyone with a yen to spend a sunny day in beautiful tranquility.

Founded in 1932 as the McKee Jungle Garden by Arthur G. McKee, a Midwestern industrialist and Waldo E. Sexton, a Vero Beach pioneer, the landscaping was designed by William Lyman Phillips, considered the "father of modern tropical landscape architecture." At the height of its popularity, the garden was drawing 100,000 visitors per year. But by the mid-70s, business had tapered off and all but a core of 18 acres was sold to developers. By the mid-90s a trust was formed and money raised to reclaim those 18 acres. The restored property was reopened in the spring of 2001.

"We are thrilled to have successfully reopened this historic site," Alford says. "It is a dream come true for many of us."

For more information, click: http://mckeegarden.org.

Frank Meder, Jr. is one of that remarkable group of guys we keep hearing about thanks to people like Tom Brokaw who will not let us forget what the Meders of the world did for us, 50+ years ago. Meder was a member of those first underwater demolition teams (UDTs), the "frogmen" who helped prepare watery landing zones for the legions of ground troops who liberated Europe and the Pacific during World War II. The units eventually morphed into the sea, air, land outfit now commonly known as U.S. Navy SEALs.

"The first UDT recruits were all big guys," says the diminutive Meder, as he leads a visitor around the UDT-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce in St. Lucie County, "you know football players, boxers . . . big guys. Then they began picking others . . . like me."

An amiable man in his 70s, Meder does, however, give the impression that he has a strong sense of duty and executes that duty with determination. After all, he did enlist near his home in Atlantic City, NJ, at the age of 17, then volunteered for "hazardous duty." He fought in some of the bloodiest battles the world had ever seen, in the Pacific, rooting the Japanese out of those tenaciously held islands. His job was slipping over the side of small boats, swimming underwater up to natural or man-made obstacles, affixing explosives to blast through a path for the landing craft.

"The enemy was shooting at us," he says, "mostly small arms. They didn't want to reveal their big stuff into the main landing force arrived."

The museum is an incredible collection of exhibits, both large and small, indoor and outdoor. Among them are landing craft from a number of American wars, including some unique underwater conveyances for slipping UDTs up to their targets. Indoors is a collection of memorabilia that chronicles how the diving equipment progressed from the cumbersome outfits of the 40s, to the sleek units used today. There are also wonderful photos depicting the history of these units and plaques commemorating those who served, and died, along with Medal of Honor winners like former senator, Bob Kerry of Nebraska.

While he would never say so outright, it was men like Meder who made the difference and continue to make the difference. When he read that a museum was being planned to commemorate the UDTs, he got involved... as a volunteer, of course. http://www.navysealteams.com/Options.htm

A persistent oversight among travelers is those small museums tucked away into corners of cities and towns all over the U.S. Even if tourists are made aware of these local repositories of history, the tendency is to dismiss them as no match for their much bigger cousins. Big mistake. These small gems often contain exhibits that define an area, providing a look at how it became what it has become and often providing ideas about interesting byways to travel during your visit there.

Take for example, the St. Lucie County Historical Museum in Ft. Pierce Beach. A tour about this small facility with guide Roz Monahan is a fascinating trip through the roots of this part of Florida. For example, you discover that the area derives its sobriquet, "Treasure Coast," from the booty-laden wrecks of 11 Spanish galleons off the coast, the object of treasure hunters for decades. You learn that Ft. Pierce was named for a cavalry lieutenant colonel from New Hampshire. You see exhibits of daily life in bygone eras, a wonderful recreation of the P.P. Cobb General Store and displays of the citrus industry that dominates the area's commerce. http://www.st-lucie.lib.fl.us/museum.htm.

Adjacent to the museum is the St. Lucie County Marine Center, which opened in the summer of 2001. Centerpiece is the Smithsonian Marine Ecosystems Exhibit. A half-dozen living environments showcase unique marine habitats, from coral reefs to sea grass and shoreline mangroves. Sea creatures which live in each of these environments dart about the tanks, or hide in its darker recesses.

"We moved some 8,000 pounds of coral from Washington," says Bill Hoffman, ecosystems exhibits manager of the new facility. Hoffman had managed the Smithsonian Exhibit in D.C. for 10 years. He says the corals at the center are being enhanced by pieces taken from dying coral reefs off the southern Florida coast, for which the center has a collecting permit. He points out that maintaining the delicate balance in these tanks is virtually identical to the situation in the marine environment. "Symbiosis is key," he says. "Disrupt even the smallest of organisms in an environment and it alters the entire cycle of life there. The more diverse an ecosystem, the more stable it is." http://www.sms.si.edu

One of the most impressive marine exploration operations anywhere is the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, in Fort Pierce. The sprawling 615-acre property is home to a complex of research facilities, where study is conducted on everything from the largely undiscovered biology of the undersea world to how to improve fish farming. The marine research operation includes a small fleet of ocean-going vessels and undersea exploration vehicles.

Landside and waterside tours are offered Monday through Saturday. The Campus & Wildlife Tour includes a look at the research facilities, a spin through the wildlife sanctuary replete with many wading birds and gators, the Aquaculture Pavilion with a great range of salt- and freshwater creatures. For the Lagoon Wildlife Boat Tour, a 42-seat pontoon boat takes visitors around the Indian River Lagoon, with a look at the birdlife, manatees and even dolphins when they deign to put in an appearance, commentary on the lagoon's history and ecology. For information on Harbor Branch, click: http://www.hboi.edu.

For more information on attractions in Indian River County, contact the Chamber of Commerce at P.O. Box 2947, Vero Beach, FL 32961; Tel.: 561-567-3491, or click: http://www.indianriverchamber.com. For St. Lucie County, contact the Tourism Development Council at 2300 Virginia Ave., F. Pierce, FL 34982; Tel.: 800-344-TGIF or click: http://www.visitstluciefla.com.