After several years of being funded in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Florida's main land preservation program floundered this year in the state legislature.
The state Senate allocated only $35 million to Florida Forever. And the House zeroed out funding completely.
However, this could change when lawmakers get back in Tallahassee in April to finalize the state budget in a special session.
Gov. DeSantis had proposed spending $115 million. But Paul Owens of the smart-growth advocacy group 1000 Friends of Florida says he doubts that much will be okayed.
"I would love to see it end up close to where the governor proposed the funding, and I'd love to see them maintain the commitment they made in 2023 to have a funding floor of $100 million," Owens said during a webinar. "Unfortunately, you know, if I were placing a bet in a prediction market, I would be assuming that it's going to be closer to where the Senate ended up with the $35 million in funding."
Lawmakers instead directed $300 million to a state program that pays farmers and ranchers not to develop their land.
Owens said he supports the Rural and Family Lands Program, but that's not enough on its own.
"It's an important part of conserving high-priority undeveloped land in Florida. More than three-quarters of unprotected land in the Florida Wildlife corridor is agricultural," he said. "The RFLPP supports our agricultural economy in the character of our rural communities, but it doesn't protect other environmentally valuable land that is not in agricultural production. It doesn't expand public access to green spaces as our population grows."
He said despite support in the past for preserving the state's fast-disappearing open land, a lot of opposition surfaced during this year's legislative session.
"There seems to be a lot of ideological opposition among House leaders to funding fee simple acquisitions, outright purchases of conservation land," Owens said. "I've explained why this is important. As our population grows, we need more of that land to expand green spaces. Today's acquisitions may be tomorrow's state parks or state forests or wildlife management areas, but I am not optimistic, unfortunately, that what will get passed where the Senate had proposed. I see that more likely as the ceiling for where the legislature ends up when the budget negotiations are over."
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