Education Matters| Saving Special Places: Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast

By Ryan G. Van Cleave | Feature Photo by Mary Lundeberg | January 2022

While our beautiful coastal region attracts tourists and offers scenic views that defy the imagination, it’s all more fragile than one might think. So much so, in fact, that in 2003, a group of concerned residents came together with the goal of protecting the land and waterways that defined our incredible region. Nearly 20 years later, that initiative has become Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, which has earned national accreditation from the Land Trust Accreditation Commission. Perhaps more important, they’ve established permanent protection of Orange Hammock Ranch, Robinson Preserve Addition, Felts Audubon Preserve, Old Miakka Preserve Addition, The Quad Parcels at the Celery Fields, and Myakka Headwaters Preserve, just to name a few. Altogether, Conservation Foundation has protected more than 18,500 acres, which is 29 square miles. And they’ve got plans to do much, much more.

Christine Johnson, who’s served as President of Conservation Foundation since 2011, explains that their goal is to save special places, not just for nature itself, but also for people. “Sometimes the land that we save is open to the public, and people can get on it and enjoy it. Sometimes protection is a conservation agreement with the landowner so that they won’t ever develop it,” she says. “Yet that still has benefit for people, whether it’s cleaning water, or bringing back native species, or keeping food local. We have clean air too, because of the trees on the land.”

Helping people see the interconnectedness of it all is something Johnson and her colleagues hope will be an outcome of their new Nature Interpreter position. Gulf Coast Community Foundation just granted funding for its first year, and the goal is to have the position filled by March 2022.

“People only love what they know, and people only know what they experience,” Johnson says. “So, we want to give people experiences, especially since the vast majority of the people who live here aren’t from here. And the vast majority of people who live in Florida live on the coast or within 10 miles of the coast. But what about more inland areas of Florida and how they relate to the Gulf Coast? What do people need to know about native plants or the importance of their own yard to the Gulf of Mexico? What about the birds we see stopping traffic when they’re in the road? Or how land keeps the water clean? The Nature Interpreter is going to help people understand more about where they live.”

Conservation Foundation’s Next Gen Conservation Youth in Nature program, which seeks to give kids WOW moments in nature, is another example of how the organization is creating connections. After all, Conservation Foundation says they’re saving land for the next generation. The kids in this program ARE the next generation. “We’re creating the next generation of land conservationists and people who want to make sure that our special places are protected and taken care of.” To ensure that happens, they’ve partnered with more than a dozen youth-serving organizations, from Tidewell Hospice Blue Butterflies to Boys & Girls Club of Sarasota and DeSoto Counties to Laurel Civic to Girls Inc. These organizations know the value of helping kids have meaningful experiences outside. Too many children live within one mile of the Intracoastal Waterway but have never set foot in the water. 

Youth in Nature showcases career possibilities that kids can aspire to that mostly or entirely take place outside. “One of my favorite stories is when a girl asked our environmental programs coordinator, Sabrina Cummings, ‘Wait a minute! You get PAID to do this?’ And she told her ‘Why don’t you go to school for a job like this so you can be outside all day too?’ It’s so rewarding to show them that there are other careers and educational opportunities than the usual.” With COVID-19 restrictions lessening, Conservation Foundation has been able to resume their other Next Gen Conservation program, Nature Explorers which focuses on citizen science activities and showing kids how they can help scientists across the country with meaningful information. 

Now that Johnson has served as President for a decade, she’s eyeing what can be done in her next decade of running the foundation. “We have this big dream of a connected corridor from the Duette Preserve in northeast Manatee County all the way to Myakka Island down to Babcock Webb in Charlotte County and on to the Everglades. It’s a big, big goal,” she admits. “I’m sure most of your readers have heard about the Florida wildlife corridor. It doesn’t touch our five coastal counties, however, except for a tiny bit at the eastern part of Sarasota County. That’s it. The rest is all in the middle of the state. So, we have our own wildlife corridor, with thousands of acres that people can experience now and forever.”

Something Johnson wants people to understand is the word “conservation.” It’s been diluted by overuse, yet some still see it as a scary thing. When Conservation Foundation says they’re conserving land, they mean forever. Other than improvement, that land is never going to be changed. “Not everything needs to be conserved,” she adds. “The important stuff does, such as land adjacent to bodies of water. And special places that have a high biodiversity of plants and animals or that connect to other protected lands to create corridors.” 

A good example of how fluid the word “conservation” can be is what’s happening with Payne Park. One hundred years ago, that land was gifted to be a park. Today, people are interpreting that as meaning it’s okay to put up a public building. Conservation Foundation makes sure that when they protect land, there’s no room for confusion in a hundred years. Every agreement they make with landowners has specific language outlining what is and isn’t permitted, and they have an endowment to enforce the agreement, if it comes to that.

They do more than just sign agreements. They care for that protected land, too. One of the reasons Florida doesn’t have terrible wildfires like they do out west is because we have prescribed burns. “Oscar Scherer State Park requires burning to keep the scrub jays there because scrub jay habitat requires periodic fire,” Johnson explains. “So, just like the State Park Service, when we own land, we maintain it in the sense that we help it with prescribed fire if that’s what it needs. We help with maintenance, keeping invasives out, or even restoration, like we’re doing on about 400 acres south of Flatford Swamp in Manatee County, or the property that we just purchased out in Myakka.”

“We’re in a race against time”, warns Johnson. But it’s not too late yet—we can still make a difference by protecting special places and our waterways by supporting the efforts of Conservation Foundation. The time is now.

FOR MORE INFORMATION Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, please visit www.conservationfoundation.com or call 941.918.2100.