Tates Hell State Forest, a Florida Forever project

Florida Forever is Florida’s premier conservation and recreation lands acquisition program, a blueprint for conserving natural resources and renewing Florida’s commitment to conserve the state’s natural and cultural heritage. Florida Forever replaces Preservation 2000 (P2000), the largest public land acquisition program of its kind in the United States. With approximately 9.8 million acres of conservation land in Florida, more than 2.4 million acres were purchased under the Florida Forever and P2000 programs.

Between its inception in July 2001 to the present, the Florida Forever program has acquired more than 650,000 acres of land with $2.73 billion. During this time, Florida Forever has protected:

• 248,650 acres of strategic habitat conservation areas
• 411,980 acres of rare species habitat conservation areas, including over 620 sites that are habitats for over 246 different rare species, 108 of which are state-listed as endangered, 47 state-listed threatened, and 22 species of special concern
• 628,590 acres of ecological greenways
• 57,240 acres of under-represented natural communities
• 76,100 acres of natural floodplains
• 637,210 acres important to significant water bodies
• 5,120 acres of fragile coastline
• 276,070 acres of functional wetlands
• 615,530 acres of significant groundwater recharge areas
• 210 kilometers of land to support priority recreational trails
• 297,890 acres of sustainable forest land
• 572 archaeological and historic sites

Note: These acreages were derived from the most recently updated Florida Forever data layers, which are continuously amended to reflect the most current scientific analysis of Florida’s natural resources. Additionally the acreages recorded for each measure often overlap, and thus should not be added together.

Florida Forever Funding Distribution - June 2008

Florida Forever funding is allocated by the legislature at $300 million per year. It is distributed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to a number of state agencies and programs to purchase public lands in the form of parks, trails, forests, wildlife management areas and more. All of these lands are held in trust for the citizens of Florida.

If fully funded as prescribed in the Florida Forever Act, the breakdown to agencies is:

Division of State Lands - $105 million Division of Recreation and Parks - $4.5 million Office of Greenways and Trails - Rails to Trails - $4.5 million Florida Recreation Development Assistance Program (FRDAP) - $6 million Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission - $4.5 million Division of Forestry, DACS - $4.5 million Rural & Family Lands, DACS - $10.5 million Stan Mayfield Working Waterfront, DCA, $7.5 million Florida Communities Trust, DCA - $63 million Water Management Districts - $90 million