- July 2, 2024
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Manatee County is working with the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast in an effort to secure a $7.5 million cost matching grant through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Nature Resources Conservation Service.
If awarded, the $15 million will be used to purchase conservation lands and easements in Manatee County.
The USDA caps the grants at $25 million, which is the total amount the Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast is requesting for the region, which includes all of Manatee and Sarasota counties, most of Charlotte County and small sections of Hardee and Lee counties.
With the USDA's match, $50 million would be spent on conservation across the region over the next five years, but there’s no plan as to exactly which properties will be bought.
“That’s what a lot of the public has trouble with. They think you know exactly what properties,” said Christine Johnson, president of the Conservation Foundation. “It’s a regional (grant), so it's anything in this region that meets the criteria for what the USDA is trying to do.”
The grants are awarded through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which has four “priority resource concerns” that decide if a property is eligible or not — the long-term protection of land, degraded plant conditions, water quality degradation and inadequate habitat for fish, wildlife and invertebrates.
The properties must also fall within a USDA Critical Conservation Area. Johnson said all of Manatee County falls within one of the CCAs.
It took about five months for foundation staff to fill out the application, which was submitted on June 28. Awards won't be announced until the fourth quarter of the year.
“There’s no reason that money shouldn’t come in,” Manatee County Commissioner Ray Turner said. “We check all the boxes.”
Johnson said the foundation applied for the grant once before and didn’t get it. She said this time around, the staff has a much better idea of what the USDA is looking for and what their last application was lacking.
Manatee County’s pledge of $7.5 million will be matched and spent in Manatee County. Sarasota pledged $5 million to purchase properties within its county.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will also match funds as long as the properties have previously been targeted for acquisition.
The DEP will contribute $3.5 million to any project that’s listed under its Florida Forever Priority List. Since 2001, the Florida Forever program has spent about $3.3 billion to conserve more than 907,412 acres of land.
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services pledged $10 million for any priority properties listed under the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program. Since 2001, the program has acquired nearly 69,000 acres of conservation easements from farmers and ranchers.
The Conservation Foundation pledged an additional $5 million, which brings the pledge amounts to $31 million. Johnson said that number makes the application "very competitive."
If awarded, the $15 million total for Manatee County would go through the same process as any other conservation acquisition. Landowners submit their properties to be reviewed by the Environmental Lands Management and Acquisition Committee. Then, ELMAC sends its recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners for approval.
Landowners can also submit their properties to the Conservation Foundation directly. If the grant is approved, the foundation will administer it for the length of the grant.
“The USDA recognizes that these projects take years to pull together and can pop up as well as fall off, so they give you five years to utilize $25 million,” Johnson said. “There’s so much happening where we’re losing valuable environmental land, and this will quicken the pace (of conservation).”
One of the foundation’s major missions is to create a Southwest Florida Wildlife Corridor, and this grant could help move the project along.
The Florida Wildlife Corridor is 18 million acres, of which 50% is already protected, but it doesn’t connect to this region yet.
Currently, there are 18,000 acres protected in the Southwest Corridor. The ultimate goal is to connect with the Florida Corridor.
Locally, the corridor starts from Duette Preserve in Manatee County. It expands through the Myakka Island Conservation Corridor down to the Babcock Webb Wildlife Management Area, which is just five miles from Punta Gorda.
Manatee County has worked with the Conservation Foundation on two recent acquisitions: Johnson Preserve on Braden River and the Crooked River Ranch.
“They basically brought Crooked River Ranch to us, and that was a great parcel for us,” Manatee County Commission Chair Mike Rahn said. “They work very well with us and our staff. They’re good folks over there."
