What is NEST?

The Sarasota County Neighborhood Environmental Stewardship Team, or NEST, promotes neighborhood involvement in environmentally-friendly projects to protect and restore our shared water resources. The NEST program operates at the neighborhood level to improve the community and our watershed resources.

NEST projects focus on both education and hands-on activities like, watershed-friendly landscaping, pond, lake, and bay shoreline restoration, bioswales, rain gardens, pervious pavement and invasive plant removal.

NEST Benefits

The NEST concept promotes neighborhood involvement in environmentally-friendly projects that homeowners can do themselves to protect and restore our water resources. The program focuses on providing education and guidance to neighbors to complete “hands-on” activities that improve their neighborhood and enhance their watershed. The program's goal is to help citizens and neighborhoods stay involved in the management and protection of the water resources of Sarasota County and become advocates for the watersheds where they live.

The best ways to keep our bays clean and healthy are to minimize the pollutants we use in our yards, and to maximize our rainfall retention. By designing our yards and common areas with techniques that capture and use rainfall on site, we can reduce watering and fertilizer costs, beautifty the landscape, and increase property curb appeal—all the while reducing the pollutants in stormwater runoff reaching our bays!

Benefits of participating in the NEST program include:

• Smarter, more attractive landscaping in common areas;
• Improved bank stability in stormwater ponds
• Decreased litter in waterways
• Reduced stormwater pollution entering local bays and waterways
• Increased habitat for pollinators & wildlife that controls mosquitoes
• Funding support and guidance from Sarasota County in planning and executing watershed-enhancing projects