Nature Conservancy Projects Included in Bush Administration’s Proposal for FY2005 Forest Legacy Projects
Program will protect thousands of acres across the United States, including 3,801 acres near the Conservancy’s Broxton Rocks Preserve in Coffee County, Georgia.
ATLANTA—February 6, 2004—The Bush Administration’s Fiscal Year 2005 budget proposal released this week includes a request for $53.1 million in funding for the Forest Legacy Program in support of 15 Nature Conservancy projects– including $1.5 million for the protection of Broxton Rocks Preserve in Coffee County, Ga.
"Broxton Rocks has been a priority conservation site for the Nature Conservancy for many years. We are pleased that the President recognizes it as a priority landscape and has proposed funding for its continued protection,” said Tavia McCuean, Nature Conservancy vice president and Georgia Chapter director.
If approved by Congress, the Forest Legacy funding will be used in Georgia towards the acquisition of 3,801 acres adjacent to the Conservancy's Broxton Rocks Preserve near Douglas, Ga. The Georgia Department of National Resources will own the new property and manage it as a wildlife management area accessible to the public. This acquisition will create a vital habitat corridor, thereby enhancing the Conservancy’s efforts to protect the fragile ecosystem of Broxton Rocks. In Fiscal Year 2004, the Forest Legacy Program budget funded $1.481 million for this project.
"This project would not be possible without the enthusiastic support of several of Georgia's leaders, including Congressman Jack Kingston and Senators Saxby Chambliss and Zell Miller," said McCuean. "They understand the need to protect such an important part of Georgia’s natural heritage, and they have helped to secure vital funding to do so.”
"I'm pleased that President Bush included this funding which will help expand and protect one of Georgia's natural treasures," said U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston. "The sandstone outcrop at Broxton Rocks is truly amazing and something that everyone should see. This new addition will be open for hunting, fishing, hiking, water activities and eco-tourism, while at the same time preserving this valuable resource and protecting endangered animals and plants in the area."
Sculpted over centuries by the waters of Rocky Creek into a myriad of fissures and shallow ravines, the “Rocks” is a haven of unique habitats for globally rare and endemic plants and animals. There are more than 525 species of plants found at the site, 26 of which are rare.
The Conservancy's existing 1,534-acre preserve protects a rugged sandstone outcrop that extends for approximately four miles in southeastern Georgia. The rock system is the largest single extrusion of the Altamaha Grit, a band of subsurface sandstone that underlies about 15,000 square miles of Georgia's Coastal Plain. This preserve is one small piece of a remarkable landscape that covers approximately 35,000 acres in southeast Georgia. The federally threatened eastern indigo snake and state threatened gopher tortoise are found here as well as over 100 species of birds, which either nest or migrate through this landscape. The Nature Conservancy now manages this land using prescribed fire to enhance the longleaf pine wiregrass community and the many rare plants and animals that depend upon this habitat.
Nature Conservancy-supported projects included in the Bush Administration’s budget proposal announced this week will protect 385,446 forested acres in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Minnesota, Maine, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Forest Legacy Program is a partnership between the United States Forest Service, state governments and private landowners that identifies and protects ecologically important forests for conservation. Program objectives are met through land acquisition or the use of conservation easements, which protect working forests while meeting important conservation goals.
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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. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 101 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. In Georgia, working with local communities and partners, over 220,000 acres have been protected. Visit us on the Web at nature.org/georgia.
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