Florida lawmakers are so far away from fulfilling their duty with the Amendment 1 funds, that their boasting falls less than flat.  The public made a loud and clear statement with the amendment, but Florida was far better off  with the funding before.  Many times over.  That is why the lawsuits continue and rightfully so.  Even more than a nose thumbing, the public has been mooned by the Legislature.

Read the original article here in the Daily Commercial.

Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
-A river is like a life: once taken, it cannot be brought back-

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Florida is back in land conservation business

Florida is back in the land conservation business in a big way, but that is not stopping environmental advocates from moving ahead with a lawsuit accusing the state of failing to abide by a 2014 constitutional amendment that earmarked money for conservation.

While praising lawmakers for making a major investment in conservation this year, environmental leaders across Florida argue much more is needed to tackle the big backlog of projects that built up during lean funding years.

And they say lawmakers still aren’t complying with an amendment — approved by 75 percent of voters — that requires the Legislature to spend 33 percent of taxes paid on real estate transactions on conservation efforts.

The Legislature set aside $101 million for Florida Forever — the state’s marquee land conservation initiative — in the 2018-19 state budget approved last week. The money is significant — the largest amount Florida Forever has received since the Great Recession. Lawmakers devoted no money to the program for the current fiscal year.

Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, championed the Florida Forever funding this year.

“The voters were screaming at us to do something,” Bradley said on the Senate floor last week. “Amendment 1 was overwhelmingly passed and frankly we had not done our job up until this year. This year I think we did our job.”

But there are 118 land acquisition projects on the Florida Forever priority list that total nearly 2.2 million acres.

Since 2008, the average price per acre to purchase conservation land through the Florida Forever program has been $6,400, according to an analysis done by Kent Wimmer with the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife.

At $6,400 per acre, Florida would need to set aside roughly $14 billion to purchase all the land on the Florida Forever priority list. Or to put it another way, $101 million is less than 1 percent of the money needed to completely buy down the Florida Forever list.

“We really appreciate Sen. Bradley going to bat and making it happen,” Wimmer said of this year’s Florida Forever allocation. “We’re really excited to have those funds available, but there’s a long ways to go.”

Getting creative

Even if the state only focused on buying lands deemed a “high priority” under Florida Forever’s ranking system — more than 800,000 acres — it would still cost more than $5 billion at $6,400 an acre.

Environmental groups plan to keep pushing for the Legislature to restore Florida Forever to its historic funding level. Between 1990 and 2008 the state spent $275 million annually on Florida Forever and its predecessor.

A return to spending roughly $1 billion on land conservation every four years would start to make a big dent in the Florida Forever priority list, especially when considering that some of the land will be protected much more cheaply by purchasing conservation easements.

The average price per acre for a conservation easement on ranchland protected through the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program — which is part of Florida Forever — was $1,700, according to Wimmer’s analysis.

Manatee County rancher Jim Strickland has been lobbying state lawmakers to expand their use of conservation easements. Strickland wants to put an easement on 4,530 acres of Blackbeard’s Ranch, a property abutting Myakka River State Park that he oversees as the managing partner, and other ranches with conservation value.

Of the $101 million set aside for Florida Forever this year, only $5.8 million is earmarked for purchasing conservation easements through the Rural and Family Lands program.

“I’ve got reason to be hopeful but I’m also realistic,” Strickland said, adding: ”$5.8 million is not going to go very far.”

At $1,700 an acre, it would cost $7.7 million just to do a conservation easement for Blackbeard’s Ranch. And there are dozens of other Florida Forever projects totaling 703,078 acres that are targeted for conservation easements.

Environmental groups have been forced to get creative in recent years to protect priority properties.

The Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast was able to broker a deal to preserve the 1,143-acre Triangle Ranch — which also borders Myakka River State Park — by finding a private buyer who wanted to protect the property while also leveraging some state money to purchase a conservation easement.

Conservation Foundation President Christine Johnson said she’s hopeful that the increase in funding for Florida Forever this year “is a beginning of a trend and the funds will be able to continue to grow and we can conserve land.”

“It can seem to be a daunting task and sometimes in the last several years we’ve felt like Sisyphus,” Johnson added, referencing the man condemned to roll a boulder uphill for eternity in ancient Greek mythology. “But I don’t think it’s a lost cause by any means.”

Many conservation advocates are walking a tightrope this year, praising GOP leaders in the Legislature for making a big commitment to Florida Forever while pointing out that the $101 million is roughly a third of what the program used to receive.

But some are more sharply critical.

The Sierra Club and a number of other environmental groups are suing the state of Florida, saying state leaders have not complied with a 2014 constitutional amendment approved by voters. The amendment requires that 33 percent of tax revenue — more than $800 million this year — from real estate transactions go toward conservation efforts.

Environmental advocates do not believe that all of the money earmarked by the amendment must go to Florida Forever. There are other conservation programs — Everglades protection, springs restoration — that they consider permissible uses of the money. But they argue that much of the money is going to pay for inappropriate expenses, such as salaries for forest service workers.

Frank Jackalone, the Sierra Club’s Florida chapter director, said the group’s lawsuit will go forward.

“We are not going to be in a position where we say that’s enough; that’s not enough,” Jackalone said, adding: “Until they fully restore the Florida Forever fund … we’re not happy. It’s kind of like saying in order to live you need a loaf of bread and they’ve been giving us a few crumbs. Well this year the Legislature gave us one slice. We still need a loaf of bread.”

Jackalone noted that Florida is growing again at a rapid pace.

The state’s population is projected to increase by somewhere between 2.8 million and 5.6 million people in the next 12 years, according to the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research.

The same lands being targeted for protection are coming under increasing development pressure.

“The people of Florida decided they wanted to spend some of their tax money to protect the remaining wild lands in Florida,” Jackalone said. “So it’s not a matter of should you do this or not? Is it the right policy? It’s the public’s policy and the Legislature should not thumb their noses at the public.”