A sign welcomes visitors to Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. It reads, “You have to save the swamp a hundred times, you only get to lose it once.” The message is a nod to the conservationists who protected one of the last stands of towering old growth cypress trees in Florida clear cutting nearly a century ago. With each passing year since the founding of the Path of the Panther project, those words have come to mean more to me. They are a testament to the generations of conservationists who have given us 10 million acres of public protected land in Florida, and they are a reminder how quickly we could lose the Florida Wildlife Corridor if we don’t rise to the new challenges of today. ACTION ALERT: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is seeking public comment by November 1st on the newly proposed Everglades to Gulf Conservation Area. The conservation area encompasses over 3-million acres of unprotected habitat in southwest and south-central Florida in which, if approved, the USFWS would work with willing landowners to pursue conservation easements for land protection and wildlife-dependent recreation opportunities for the public. The proposal builds upon and compliments existing programs like the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act, Florida Forever, and Rural & Family Lands Protection Programs by providing another way to work with landowners in protecting at-risk habitat from being developed. The proposal supports the protection of family farms and ranches, improved water quality, natural resource based tourism, and the land connectivity needed for Florida’s wide-ranging wildlife like the Florida panther and Florida black bear. The deadline for comments is November 1st! https://lnkd.in/eCGAG9PF
