Now that Florida’s legislative session has wrapped up, what’s next on our map for influencing Florida conservation? First up is the upcoming Farm Bill.
Dreaming big is “how can we shape this place, its future, to be better for ALL of Florida?” What does smart development look like? What is the right balance?
When we think of land protection, we usually think of the larger land trusts in our state, groups like Conservation Florida or the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast. It’s never been our goal to be in the land protection business . . . But when an opportunity arose this past year, we took it!
This legislative session, we were able to work with some incredible lawmakers to allow Floridians the opportunity to vote on the 2024 ballot for a state constitutional right to fish and hunt.
In 2023, our members have already made a huge impact in this space. . . We’ve had members attend over 100 meetings this year, and we’re not even to the halfway point yet!
Land Conservation is always a hot topic. This last year we received over 1.2 billion in funding for acquisition and protection, the most in history. We want to continue to build on this at the state and federal level to continue allowing for conservation of environmentally sensitive and working lands.