None The Nature Conservancy in Florida Press Releases Search All Press Releases Jill Austin Phone: (407) 682-3664, ext. 129 E-mail: jaustin@tnc.org

Raise Florida Forever Funding to $1 Billion per Year, Coalition Proposes

Florida Forever’s annual $300 million has not increased since 1990, can’t match land prices.

TALLAHASSEE, FL—Oct. 9, 2006—A coalition of 16 regional, state and national nonprofit organizations today announced support for extending and expanding the state’s conservation land-buying program.

“We propose that, by 2008, Florida Forever or a successor program spend up to $1 billion per year preserving environmentally sensitive land, buying parkland, and securing our water resources,” the Florida Forever Coalition stated in an open letter that ran in today’s edition of the Tallahassee Democrat.

For more than 15 years, the state of Florida has been a national leader in the preservation of conservation lands. Starting with Preservation 2000 in 1990, then Florida Forever in the year 2000, the state has dedicated $6 billion and acquired more than 2 million acres of fragile natural areas. Despite such successes, however, conservation funding has not kept pace with Florida’s incredible growth. Between 1999 when Florida Forever was conceived and 2005, the price the state has paid for conservation land has increased 112 percent, according to the Land Conservation Statistical Abstract, prepared by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Due to Florida’s incredible growth, the annual conservation funding that represented $23 per person in 1990 has dropped to $15 today.

Our lands and waters remain vulnerable due to increasing urban and suburban development pressures; altered or inappropriate fire regimes; invasive species; pollution and excessive water withdrawal; escalating land prices; and the increasing need for management of public lands.

Members of the Florida Forever Coalition proposing a commitment of $1 billion per year toward securing the legacy that began so long ago are: The Nature Conservancy, Audubon of Florida, The Trust for Public Land, Florida Recreation & Park Association, Florida Wildlife Federation, the Alliance of Florida Land Trusts, American Society of Landscape Architects, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, The Conservation Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, Everglades Trust, Florida Chapter of the American Planning Association, Florida Native Plant Society, Florida Trail Association, 1,000 Friends of Florida, and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading international, nonprofit organization that preserves plants, animals and natural communities representing the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. With funding from the voter approved Florida Forever program and our generous donors the Conservancy has helped protect more than 1.2 million acres in Florida since 1961.