Land Protection in Florida

This once-in-a-generation win for the environment protects 17,000 acres of habitat with immense conservation value. This essential tract of coastal habitat in Florida’s Big Bend is part of a protected landscape spanning more than one million acres. This conservation milestone benefits climate resilience, water quality, safeguards of habitat needed by countless native and migrating species and has now been designated as a Florida State Park.

Finalized in 2020, this acquisition was more than 10 years in the making and closes the gap between Bald Point State Park and Tate’s Hell State Forest, creating a contiguous protected landscape that includes the Apalachicola National Forest, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and the Ochlockonee River State Park. The protection of the Bluffs marks a conservation milestone, with benefits to climate resilience, preservation of rivers and lakes that are critical to water quality, quantity and the health of the region’s aquaculture and the safeguarding of habitat needed by countless native and migrating species.

The Bluffs of St. Teresa includes lakes, wetlands, floodplain swamp, salt marshes and tidal creeks along uplands that include pine forest, shrub and bog. It is home to rare plants, endangered animals and includes water frontage along the Gulf of America, Ochlockonee Bay and Ochlockonee River. Not only does this area connect multiple state parks and federally preserved lands, it also protects estuarine and freshwater resources that make up the economic and ecological lifeblood of the near-shore Gulf. Since its acquisition by TNC, the tract became a Florida State Park as the St. Teresa Tract of Bald Point State Park.

In the largest conservation win of its kind in more than a decade, TNC successfully protected Lake Wimico in collaboration with partners. This crucial and biodiverse 20,161-acre piece of land in northwest Florida surrounds the 4,000-acre lake after which the parcel is named. Upon completion of the purchase in 2020, TNC immediately donated the property to the State of Florida through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, for ongoing conservation, management and restoration.

The safeguarding of Lake Wimico helps preserve and protect the water quality of the highly productive Apalachicola River, Apalachicola Bay and Gulf. It creates a protected refuge for resident and migratory wildlife, including many federally and state-listed imperiled species. The lake and its surrounding lands and waters are home to the Florida black bear, manatee, bald eagle, osprey, swallow-tailed kite, many species of wading and shore birds and turtles. Its water flowing into Apalachicola Bay is critical to nurseries of migrating fish and oyster populations. Additionally, the conservation of the cypress-dominated swamps, marshes and water flow help ensure a resilient landscape that provides adaptation to impacts of climate change and sea-level rise, as well as habitat for ecological communities.

This freshwater wetland habitat in Florida’s panhandle has been identified repeatedly over the past 50 years as an area of critical conservation significance for preservation and is a priority parcel with the state’s Florida Forever Program. With this acquisition, the land has now been protected in perpetuity. With the Lake Wimico property, TNC and its partners have expanded an existing tapestry of connected lands to more than 1 million acres in total, resulting in one of the most diverse and important natural protected areas along the Gulf Coast.

The Hendrie Ranch is a biodiverse and special place at the southern end of the Lake Wales Ridge in Highlands County, a region where TNC has focused efforts to protect and connect lands and waters essential to wildlife, including the Florida panther. A protection priority for decades, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, in partnership with TNC and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, protected 661 acres of the ranch in 2023 through a conservation easement, ensuring the ranch may continue cattle ranching while being protected from development.

The easement will protect surface and groundwater quality and quantity, necessary for maintaining healthy ecosystems. The property is strategically located as part of a protected landscape providing essential corridors for wildlife, including lands important for Florida black bear, Southeastern fox squirrel, gopher tortoise, Florida scrub jay, crested caracara, swallow-tailed kite, wood stork and Florida sandhill crane.

With threats such as development to Florida's diverse wildlife, lands and waters, we continue to pursue opportunities to collaborate with landowners and partners to protect critical habitats. This collaboration of landowner, federal and state agencies, and nonprofit organizations successfully results in the acquisition of conservation easements that safeguard lands and waters critical to biodiversity, climate resilience and Florida’s future.

This 6,859-acre wildlife corridor located in southwest Florida is a Florida Forever project protected from development by a conservation easement, connecting protected habitat to secure the wildlife corridor for Florida panther migration north toward protected lands.

The Chaparral Slough project area—11 miles long and one mile wide—runs along Chaparral Slough, a tributary to Cypress Branch, and is part of the 122,213-acre Fisheating Creek Ecosystem Florida Forever Project. This conservation easement connects protected habitat from south of the Caloosahatchee River to Fisheating Creek, securing the wildlife corridor for Florida panther migration north toward protected lands flanking Fisheating Creek.

Chaparral Slough features a vast array of natural habitats, including depression marsh, wet prairie, forested wetlands, floodplain swamp, slough, floodplain marsh, hydric hammock, prairie hammock, dry prairie and mesic pine flatwoods. The wildlife corridor is home to the endangered Florida panther in addition to other iconic species including Florida black bear, Eastern indigo snake, gopher tortoise, Florida sandhill crane, American bald eagle, Florida burrowing owl, swallow-tailed kite, snail kite and many others.

These lands also provide critical water supplies, enhanced water quality and a wide variety of essential ecosystem services to the residents of South Florida. Chaparral Slough captures, stores and slowly releases water that travels to the Caloosahatchee River and the downstream San Carlos Bay estuarine system. The completion of this conservation easement in 2022 signifies a new era of protection for Florida’s natural habitats.

This 14-acre island joined the Key West National Wildlife Refuge in 2020 after owner David Wolkowsky generously donated it to TNC to be forever protected. Located in the clear blue and vibrant waters eight miles west of Key West, this safeguarded subtropical gem supports marine and coastal scientific research and education.

For more than two decades, TNC and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service worked closely with Mr. Wolkowsky to preserve the island’s natural and historical values. The partners are now collaborating to manage and conserve the island, which is home to many imperiled and endangered species of native plants and wildlife. The shallow waters surrounding the key teem with inhabitants of a healthy coral reef ecosystem including threatened and endangered sea turtles.

Mr. Wolkowsky began his stewardship of the island in the early 1970s, carefully developing and managing the property in an environmentally sensitive way. As a well-known and impactful public figure, developer, philanthropist and visionary, he welcomed many guests to the island including Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Nancy Sinatra and Leonard Bernstein, among others. Mr. Wolkowsky arranged to donate the island to protect it from a future of development and offer its wealth of natural resources and beauty to conservation purposes, prior to his passing at the age of 99 in September 2018.

The island is the final piece of the Key West National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt as a preserve and breeding ground for nesting wading birds and other wildlife, set in over 375 square miles of open water. For more than 110 years the refuge has been managed to preserve quality, character and integrity of these protected wilderness lands and open waters.