TALLAHASSEE — What initially appeared to be a major blow to Florida’s land conservation efforts turned out to be a strategic budget move.
Governor Ron DeSantis has restored $200 million in funding to preserve environmentally sensitive lands along the Florida Wildlife Corridor—reversing what had seemed like a veto of key conservation dollars.
The funding had appeared on the governor’s list of vetoes as he signed the state’s new budget. That raised concern among environmental advocates, especially since the Florida Forever land acquisition program received just $18 million in the 2025-26 budget—a sharp drop from last year’s $229 million, which marked a 16-year high thanks to federal relief funds.
However, conservation leaders now say the $200 million was not eliminated but rather redirected back into land acquisition. The money had previously been swept by lawmakers from designated land-buying accounts into general revenue, but DeSantis’s veto effectively returned those funds to Florida Forever.
“The House and Senate had recommended pulling some of that back into general revenue… and the governor’s veto basically restores $200 million back into the acquisition funding pool,” said Jason Lauritsen, chief conservation officer of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation. “It enables staff to be efficient, to plan ahead. Some of the land deals are pretty complex, and they’re not things that you can do over the course of a few weeks.”
The funding will support critical segments of the Florida Wildlife Corridor, particularly in the northern Everglades and between the Ocala and Osceola national forests. These include the Caloosahatchee Big Cypress Land Acquisition Project and the Ocala to Osceola Corridor—both of which received $850 million in 2023, but still require more funding to complete.
While Florida Forever’s line-item funding shrank, the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program saw a significant boost—jumping from $100 million to $250 million. That program pays farmers and ranchers along the wildlife corridor not to develop their land, offering another mechanism to preserve Florida’s rapidly vanishing green spaces.
Environmental groups also received an added boost this year, with the Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation securing a $1 million increase in support for its work connecting and conserving natural lands across the state.
