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The Withlacoochee Land Swap

When I started seeing that phrase on my Insta feed on elsewhere online, my first thought was, “Oh, crap, not again.”

We’re fresh off a failed-for-now plan to build pickleball courts, giant hotels, and golf courses in some of our Florida State Parks. The sheer outrage of Floridians definitely drove the failure. But some days, I want to sip tea and write about back bay fishing in the Everglades, not worrying that our storied leadership was, parcel by parcel, dismantling what makes Florida special.

To unpack the proposed land swap, Rick and I asked Gene Kelly to join the podcast this week. I referred to him a native plant junkie, but in reality he’s a conservation biologist. He’s also the president of the Florida Native Plant Society.

What’s the deal with the Withlacoochee land swap?

The Florida Forest Service has a piece of land, 324 acres in all, that’s next to the Withlacoochee State Forest. It’s at the intersection of US 98 and the Suncoast Parkway.

The State wants to swap that land with 860 acres of land in Levy County.

If you’re thinking that’s more land that gets protected and hey, what’s so bad about that?, hold your conservation horses, friends, because there’s more to the story.

“It’s bigger,” Keely said, but also, “it’s isolated.”

But the existing piece of land near the Withlacoochee State Forest?  It’s part of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, and it’s adjacent to the Withlacoochee State Forest.

The swap, Kelly said, “makes zero sense in terms of conservation. The conservation values of that parcel make it entirely unsuitable to be considered for surplussing or land swap.”

How did the Florida Forest Service get the land?

The Florida Department of Transportation gave this piece of land to the Florida Forest Service to mitigate the sandhill habitat destroyed in building the Suncoast Parkway.

Sandhill habitat is not unlike Florida scrub, but they are not the same. Both are elevated and have well-drained, sandy soil. Florida’s lost a lot of both scrub and sandhill habitat to development, because the higher (relatively speaking) elevations make it attractive to developers set to profit from building suburbs.

But in the scrub, sand pine and scrub oaks dominate, while sandhill habitat has longleaf pines comprising the tree canopy. Biologists like Kelly consider it more of a “grassland habitat,” with abundant ground cover that includes native grasses and legumes.

“It’s just chock full of things for wildlife to eat,” Kelly said. Plus, “It’s really primed for restoration of sandhill habitat.”

And, he added, “our forest rangers know what they’re doing with restoration,” making this piece of land — currently a plantation of sand pines — primed for a more natural look. The “plantation” style of planting — rows and rows — is not as natural as organic growth.

But if the State swaps the land for the land in Levy, all the trees go away — and no organic plantings will replace them. Instead, Cabot Citrus Farms wants to extend its golf empire into this scrap of nature.

The Cabot Citrus Farms property here already has three golf courses.

Last I heard, Florida wasn’t suffering for more golf courses, and Floridians weren’t clamoring for less nature.

Kelly put it more succinctly.

“Private interests should not be able to initiate these sorts of things,” he said.

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Where is the land in question?

It’s Annutteliga Hammock Unit of Withlacoochee State Forest. Florida Hikes has an excellent description of this part of the forest. (Caves! It has caves!)

What can you do?

Pay attention. You can, as Kelly did, email the head of the Florida Forest Service (Rick Dolan) and the Department of Agriculture (Wilton Simpson). Tell them not to make the swap,

But the biggest thing you can do is create a Google alert for “Withlacoochee land swap.” Then, wait to see if the state schedules this for what’s called an Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC) review. If that happens, it’s up to a 10-member group whether or not  this tract of land gets turned into yet another putting green.

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Listen to the Withlacoochee land swap episode

 

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