Virtual Corridor Town Hall Recording

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the virtual Corridor Town Hall and to all of the partners that made it a success! 

If you couldn't make it, or want to watch the replay, you can access the full recording linked here. 

We are grateful for your dedication to protecting the Florida Wildlife Corridor. A permanently connected Corridor will only be achieved through collaboration, so thank you for your continued work, support, and feedback. 

As Hurricane Milton approaches the West Coast, our thoughts are with everyone in its path. Please stay safe and take all necessary precautions to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

There were a handful of questions that our panel did not have time to cover during the Town Hall. Please see the answers to these questions from Jason Lauritsen, Chief Conservation Officer at the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation below: 

1. Why is it legal/permissible to construct roads through land that is part of the corridor?  

First, great question. Hopefully this will be a start towards an answer.  From the wildlife corridors perspective, it would be great if we could avoid any further fragmentation of the Corridor with any changes in our road networks. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Act is not a regulatory Act, and it does not prohibit development, but instead it incentivizes conservation actions that would help bring the Corridor fully into being.

So that's the most direct reason. Behind that question I see an opportunity to share a bit of the complexity at work in the effort to do transportation planning as we grow and seek to conserve the Corridor. There are over 1000 miles of major roads within the Corridor, most of them built before the concept of wildlife corridor ecology had been established, and designed without regard to the need to preserve ecosystem connections for wildlife. Roads have been one of, if not the most fragmenting element of development in the Corridor. One of our goals is to help the FDOT and other transportation planning entities understand the impact of roads on the Corridor, and to commit to fully mitigating those impacts, and where possible, seeking to enhance permeability for wildlife. We would benefit from additional studies and analysis on road impacts to specific species, as well as population growth and traffic pattern projections, and Florida has made strides in collecting data, analyzing and using data in planning.

A roads impact is a byproduct of its location, width, traffic volume, and the existence, design and placement of features that can improve permeability to wildlife such as bridges, directional fencing and wildlife crossings. Impacts vary widely, and can change over time. Given Florida's population growth, traffic levels on this existing road network are increasing, and without building any new roads the existing roads with more traffic result in less permeability and more fragmentation of the Corridor. Increases in traffic along certain sensitive rural areas of the Corridor can and has significantly isolated important habitat patches, without adding new miles of roads, or adding new lanes to existing roads. In this case, doing nothing on the road network is an impact. Going from 2 lane to 4 lane roads in these rural areas, for many wildlife species, represents a significant fragmenting impact, unless adequate wildlife crossings etc were included. Adding new roads in rural areas without existing development is among the most controversial and most impactful outcomes for the Corridor. It is our hope that we exhaust all other options before embarking on these greenfield alignments. And when they are the only option, it's equally important that generous permeability features are incorporated into the designs. 

2. Would the Foundation support legislation that would provide oversight on any proposals involving the state relinquishing fee title ownership of conservation lands in the FL Wildlife Corridor?  This is related to a bill considered during the 2024 legislative session that would allow the sale of such lands, and retention of a Rural and Family Lands agricultural conservation easement, while bypassing any current statutory requirements limiting the sale of conservation land as "surplus".

Speaking for the Foundation, this is a really Important topic and it’s one we are happy to engage with our partners over the next several months towards the goal of legislation that would help accelerate conservation protections across the corridor without compromising its functional value. We won’t commit ourselves to a stance today, as we are a pretty deliberative group, but we do see risks to the corridor that would be associated with any loose allowance to convert public fee simple conservation lands to a working lands CE. We have also seen our land trust partners employ an upfront buy-conserve-sell strategy to great result, stretching limited funding while accelerating acreage protections. The devil is in the details. Thank you for the question Gene, it is a really important one, and getting it wrong would be costly.