Landbuy: $1 billion a year or bust: Lofty goal set to help preserve Florida for generations to come.


Wednesday, November 01, 2006

By Kevin Spear
Orlando Sentinel

During the past several decades, Florida has purchased spectacular landscapes for preservation—from dazzling beach dunes that cradle freshwater lakes to ancient scrub lands that shelter some of the state’s rarest plants. But the state’s Florida Forever program, generating $300 million annually for buying land and other conservation measures, expires at the end of the decade. Instead of just gearing up to plead with the state Legislature to renew that funding, however, a coalition of environmentalists has launched a campaign with a far loftier goal. The Florida Forever Coalition will attempt to secure an astounding $1 billion a year during a decade to buy and protect critical pieces of prairie, forest, wetlands and desertlike scrub. The increase is needed to keep up with rising land costs, coalition members say.

Proponents of the idea want the additional money to come from the source that now provides for most of the state’s current land purchases: documentary-stamp taxes on real-estate and legal transactions. It would just be a bigger slice of the “doc” stamp cash that now goes primarily to the state’s general-spending account for health, education and other services. “There’s no question that this is an ambitious effort,” said Andy McLeod, interim state director in Florida for the Trust for Public Land, one of 16 groups in the coalition that includes Audubon of Florida, The Nature Conservancy and Defenders of Wildlife.

Several state representatives and senators said a request for $1 billion a year will face stiff, but not impossible, competition.

“I don’t know what the magic number is going to be,” said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland. “I personally think $1 billion is a very reasonable request.” State Rep. Thad Altman, R-Melbourne, said one argument for increasing spending is to help ensure that Florida is livable in years to come. “The overwhelming majority of people who live in this state say we need to do more to protect our environment,” Altman said. “It sounds like a lot of money, but it’s not when you consider the needs and benefits.” While Florida has been accused of allowing development to run amok across rural lands, the ongoing commitment to buy and protect land has done much to block the advance of bulldozers. The state has long had the most aggressive land-purchase and conservation program anywhere in the nation. The Florida Forever program and the previous Preservation 2000 program in the 1990s have assembled more than 2 million acres of landscapes that will be treasured far into the future. Today, about 27 percent of Florida land is under some form of conservation, including national forests, open spaces on big military bases, state lands and private lands that have been dedicated for preservation. A number of scientists think that as much as 33 percent of the state should be under conservation for the long-term survival of native ecosystems. But now, according to state officials, few of the largest, spectacular or pristine tracts are left. Most already have been set aside for preservation or carved up for rooftops and pavement. Yet obtaining some smaller or less-pristine parcels will play a critical role in linking larger conservation parcels together, protecting rare species and recharging underground aquifers, which supply drinking water and feed springs, lakes and rivers. To achieve those goals, a study this year by The Nature Conservancy recommends the state should acquire an additional 2.3 million acres—which could cost nearly $10 billion. The classic example of future needs are efforts by state, regional and local governments to buy puzzle pieces of property between the Ocala National Forest and the Wekiva River. More than 50,000 acres between the Wekiva River and the national forest are in public ownership, including the popular Wekiwa Springs State Park. But the state park won’t continue to be valuable as habitat unless corridors of natural land remain open to black bears, for example, migrating along the Wekiva River, St. Johns River and Ocala National Forest. There’s a huge difference between the more than 2 million acres bought since the early 1990s and the 2.3 million acres identified for future purchases: cost.

In 1990, the average price for an acre in Florida was nearly $4,000. Today, that figure is nearly $30,000, according to coalition figures.

In the past few years, skyrocketing real-estate prices have shriveled the buying power of Florida Forever. “This is really being realistic about the price of land,” said Vicki Tschinkel, director of The Nature Conservancy in Florida, which is part of the coalition and often assists the state in land purchases. That was made clear last month when Gov. Jeb Bush and Cabinet members approved a $50 million purchase of the 4,569-acre Joshua Creek Conservation Area in northeast Orange County and a small part of Seminole County. That same land was sold for $17 million less just six months earlier, a difference attributed in part to escalating real-estate prices. How much time is left to buy more environmentally sensitive lands depends on how fast the state sprawls. The pace varies from blistering in some years to modest in others. McLeod of the Trust for Public Land said the coalition has no specific strategy in place yet for winning approval of additional land-buying money. One approach may be to make a formal push for that money as early as next year’s legislative session. Those details will be discussed this week at the Public Land Acquisition and Management Partnership Conference in Jacksonville. The gathering, which starts today, is expected to draw politicians, state officials, environmental leaders and professionals in land acquisition—many of the same people who will usher the $1 billion proposal into public and legislative debate. “It’s going to be a very important audience,” McLeod said.

Kevin Spear can be reached at or 407-420-5062.