Conservation partnership acquires Volusia land
Conservation Florida (CF), a land conservancy, has partnered with the MDS Land Conservation Foundation, buying land in Volusia and Marion counties.
No financial details were released.
The two properties are Patriots Lake, just east of DeLand in Volusia, and Millpond Swamp in Marion, and become part of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, an 18-million-acre network of wild and working lands.
While roughly 10 million acres within the corridor have been conserved, 8 million acres remain at risk. With more than 1,000 new residents moving to Florida each day — a city the size of Orlando each year — development is rising at unprecedented rates, according to CF officials.
The loss of wild lands spoke to the hearts of Michael and Deborah Sciarrino, who founded the MDS Foundation in 2022.
“Our family and foundation have decided to make a long-term commitment to conserving as much of the Florida Wildlife Corridor as we are able,” stated Mr. Sciarrino, founder of the foundation, in a news release. “We view this as a more than 20-year endeavor to protect Florida’s large tracts of land in perpetuity.”
Patriots Lake spans 582 acres in Volusia. Once at risk for development, the property is now permanently conserved.
The land falls within the Volusia Conservation Corridor Florida Forever boundary, identified by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as a key protection area.
The property is home to species like the Florida black bear, bald eagle, gopher tortoise, eastern diamondback rattlesnake and white-tailed deer. Lake-side sunflowers, celestial lilies and other rare species may also be found here. Basin swamp, hydric hammock, mesic flatwoods, scrub, and dome swamps on Patriots Lake support rare species like the hooded pitcher plant. Preserving the property also helps water quality by expanding the aquifer recharge area
Who will manage the land is unclear.
"We often act as the facilitator, assisting landowners through the conservation process, while other times we may retain ownership and management responsibility of the protected land,” a CF spokeswoman stated in an email. “It truly depends on the need and most efficient methodology.”
Millpond Swamp encompasses 1,847.5 acres of freshwater swamps and forests, and provides essential connectivity between surrounding conservation areas, including the Orange Creek Restoration Area and Lochloosa Slough Preserve, and is immediately adjacent to the Mill Creek Florida Forever boundary.