Strategic Conservation Plan

Protecting the Land and Water You Love

Our service area’s diverse geography is characterized by a blend of natural ecosystems, agricultural lands, rapidly urbanizing areas, and culturally significant communities – all of which influence regional conservation priorities.

Critical watersheds, including the Manatee, Myakka, Peace, and Caloosahatchee Rivers, connect inland ecosystems to coastal estuaries of the Gulf of Mexico. Coastal wetlands, mangroves, seagrass beds, and upland habitats like pine flatwoods and oak scrub sustain biodiversity, while rivers and their floodplains provide crucial freshwater supplies, enhance flood control, and support wildlife.

Unfortunately, rapid urbanization in coastal cities like Bradenton, Sarasota, Fort Myers, and Naples drives development pressure both on the coast and inland, where urban sprawl threatens remaining natural and agricultural lands. Agricultural producers are under tremendous pressure to sell their land for development, and phosphate mining operations continue to expand. Rising sea levels exacerbate risks like storm surges, habitat loss, and saltwater intrusion, highlighting the urgent need for coastal resilience to protect our communities from the continued impacts of climate change.

The success and well-being of our region depends on the health and well-being of our land and water. Landscape scale action is needed and urgent if we are to save the last remaining large land tracts, wildlife corridors, and pockets of urban green space before they are gone.

Our 2030 Strategic Conservation Plan prioritizes saving these critical places and provides laser-focus to our work of protecting Southwest Florida’s land and water for the benefit of people and nature.

Data and Value Driven

Our strategy is data driven and prioritized by our six conservation values: Clean Water, Imperiled Species, Coastal Resiliency, Sustainable Agriculture, Access for All, and Carbon Sequestration.

Grounded in ecological and social science research, geospatial data, and stakeholder collaboration, this plan outlines a proactive and landscape-scale approach to conservation, identifying which land we need to save now. By strategically targeting the most urgent conservation opportunities, we can address current environmental challenges and build a framework for future resilience across Southwest Florida’s landscapes and communities.

Targeted Focus Areas

In the plan, we identify nine high-priority geographic areas within our community that can have the greatest potential benefit to our conservation values. We call these nine geographic regions our Focus Areas.

Creating Focus Areas allows us to concentrate our work where we will have the largest impact for people and nature. We will still continue to protect land outside of Focus Areas; however, this work will primarily be reactive, in response to landowner inquiries and partner requests, rather than proactive.

Focus Area Methodology

Focus Areas were selected using a Geographic Information System (GIS) decision model. For our GIS analysis, we took each conservation value and selected GIS data to represent them. We evaluated nearly 100 datasets and selected fifteen — twelve core natural and community resource data layers and three data layers representing potential development risk. Another significant data element was our watershed methodology, which we based on a report by Open Space Institute entitled: Protecting Forests for Clean Water.

The GIS model identified which sub-watersheds contain the highest concentration of conservation values, using normalized scaled metrics, as well as which sub-watersheds are most at-risk of development. This showed 24 priority sub-watersheds clustered into nine geographic areas.

Listed below are the nine areas where we will strategically focus our work. Click on any focus area to learn more.

By concentrating our efforts within the nine Focus Areas, we maximize our chances of success and therefore maximize your investment in our mission. Focus Areas also allow us to define, measure and report on progress. Read more about our specific goals and metrics through the link below.

GOALS, METRICS, AND PROGRESS

Get Involved

Save Your Land

Those interested in learning more about how to protect their land, including funding resources available, are encouraged to complete our online contact form here or call us at 941-918-2100. We also invite you to email our Director of Land Protection, Brooke Langston, or our Land Stewardship Manager, Lee Amos.

LANDOWNER RESOURCES

Make A Gift

Your gift strengthens Southwest Florida’s resiliency to storms and floods, enriches lives, and helps safeguard our community for generations to come. Together, we are ensuring all people have access to clean water, fresh air, nutritious food, abundant wildlife, beautiful natural areas to enjoy, and all the other physical and mental benefits nature provides, now and forever.

DONATE