The Science Behind Florida Forever

A major role of the Florida Natural Areas Inventory since our founding in 1981 has been to provide scientific information and expertise to support the state’s land acquisition and land management efforts.  This role ramped up substantially with the beginning of the Florida Forever program in 2001.  FNAI developed and maintains the Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment, a series of statewide prioritized GIS data layers that address a variety of natural resources that are the focus of land acquisition.  These maps identify conservation priorities for rare and vulnerable plant and animal species, natural communities, landscape corridors, surface waters, wetlands, floodplain, forestry, aquifer recharge, and more.

When the Florida Forever Act was first passed in 2000, state legislators were seeking greater accountability from land acquisition efforts.  They specified that the Florida Forever program:

• Be based on a comprehensive assessment of Florida’s natural resources
• Should provide multiple benefits
• Involve a competitive selection process to select projects best able to meet the goals and maximize efficient use of the program’s funding
• Should be based on measurable goals and objectives.

In response, FNAI developed the Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment in coordination with the DEP Division of State Lands, and in cooperation with partner agencies and resource experts.  The Needs Assessment:

• Provides baselines of resource protection against which to measure progress
• Identifies priority lands to meet conservation needs
• Identifies areas that meet multiple conservation needs
• Clearly and continuously tracks and reports progress of the Florida Forever program.

FNAI Rare Species Habitat Conservation Priorities, a component of the Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment.

FNAI also developed the Florida Forever Tool for Efficient Resource Acquisition and Conservation, or F-TRAC analysis, to consider all of the above resource values together and identify those places where the state can achieve the most conservation benefit per acre acquired.  All of these data and analyses are provided to the Florida Forever Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC) to help inform their decisions on acquisition proposals, project rankings, and land management planning.  FNAI is also able to report overall progress of the program toward conservation of each natural resource category.

 

The Acquisition and Restoration Council in session.

Excerpt from the Florida Forever Comparative Analysis Table, provided to ARC by FNAI prior to each project ranking.

FNAI staff scientists also participate in site visits to Florida Forever project proposals, and provide narrative reports evaluating the natural resources and land management potential of each site.

FNAI and ARC staff visit a site proposed for a Florida Forever project.

 

Taken together, all of this information provides sound science to inform and support the Florida Forever program.  For more information, visit our Florida Forever page for data, reports, and more details.

New Web Map Highlights Examples of High Quality Natural Communities

FNAI scientists have collected data at 68 sites across Florida that are excellent examples of well managed natural communities.  These sites serve as references for land managers working to restore similar areas that have been impacted by human activities such as agriculture, hydrological alterations, or fire exclusion; because of this they are called Reference Natural Communities.  Each reference community exhibits the species diversity, species composition, physical structure, and general ecological integrity expected for the community type.  These areas are some of the most beautiful and pristine landscapes in Florida, and because of this they are not only good models for land management but also great areas to visit.  Our interactive map of reference communities, recently updated, is a great resource to identify reference community locations in your area and to access site descriptions and quantitative data.  You can visit the map here.   Our Reference Natural Community work is supported by funding from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Noteworthy Discoveries: Hand Fern in Hendry County

During recent field surveys to document rare plants at Dinner Island Wildlife Management Area, FNAI botanists located two populations of hand fern (Ophioglossum palmatum), a distinctive epiphytic fern that grows almost exclusively in the humus that accumulates in cabbage palm leaf bases, commonly called “boots.”  Although these ferns are found in tropics around the world, they are believed to have experienced a dramatic decline in Florida over the last century due to artificial drainage, particularly in the Everglades.   According to the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants, hand fern has never been collected in Hendry County, so FNAI scientists were excited to discover these populations.

Hand fern (Ophioglossum palmatum).   Photo by James Surdick