Millions given for Panhandle conservation

By Bruce Ritchie
Thursday, February 22, 2001

About $65 million in conservation funds could roll into a wide swath of south Alabama, southwest Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, including Leon County and surrounding counties.

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is donating nearly $11 million toward conservation in the region, which is becoming known nationally for its rare and endangered plants and animals.

Two national environmental groups - The Nature Conservancy and the Conservation Fund - agreed to match the donation by trying to raise $54 million for land purchases in the region.

"That region right in your back yard is such a critical piece of nature," said Peter Howell, a program director for the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, headquartered in New York.

"No one is suggesting that development be stopped. The question is, can it be channeled into places that are more appropriate than others?"

Conservation-group representatives said the donation and matching funds represent a huge conservation push for the region.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Georgia Gov. Roy E. Barnes each praised the foundation donation as "generous." Bush said the foundation gift will help protect the Red Hills, the Apalachicola River and bay and the Blackwater River, which is west of the Apalachicola.

The Nature Conservancy must raise $42 million to match $6.3 million it will receive from the Doris Duke foundation.

The Conservation Fund will work with other groups, including the Tall Timbers Research Station north of Tallahassee, to raise $12 million to match the $3.5 million it will get from the foundation.

The foundation also will donate $500,000 to 1000 Friends of Florida, which is headquartered in Tallahassee, and $581,660 to the Georgia Conservancy in Atlanta to help local governments in the region protect natural areas.

The Florida Panhandle last year was identified in a national report as being one of six biological "hot spots" because of its rare and endangered species.

The foundation chose the three-state region that includes the Panhandle - called the eastern Gulf coastal plain - from among 22 ecological regions in the country because of those threatened species, Howell said. Other reasons included development pressures, popular support for conservation in the region and lower land costs. To allay possible fears by landowners that they will be forced to sell their land, Howell emphasized that the groups will work only with those who want to sell.

The groups also will buy conservation easements, which allow a landowner to keep property in return for giving up some or all rights to develop.

"The best of wild Florida will be protected for generations to come because of the foundation's generous gift," Bush said in a statement released by the foundation.

The donation and matching money can be used to match state money earmarked for natural areas to help speed up purchases in the Panhandle, said Hans Kairies, development officer of The Nature Conservancy's Florida chapter.

The donation also will help conserve land along the Aucilla and Ochlockonee rivers in Georgia, which has a small land-buying program compared to Florida's, said Kevin McGorty, director of the Red Hills Conservation Program at the Tall Timbers Research Station.

"This is the largest grant so far by a private foundation into this (Red Hills) Region, so this is a big thing," McGorty said.