This land exchange will provide 700 acres of North Florida forests to Peanut Farm

In a move wary of wildlife advocacy groups, the state’s water manager is considering a land exchange that provides around 700 acres of North Florida forest land to nearby Peanuts Farming Company.

The proposal will take place for more than a decade after another Operation Peanuts sought a similar trade offer and the same strip of land as Madison County in the forests of Twin Rivers, known as the Ellaville Region.

But I never experienced that transaction. Citing the risks to endangered species on property, federal wildlife biologists, a lively gopher turtle population, urged the then national leaders to maintain the land for conservation.

“If the land being replaced is not developed or managed in the future, it will erode the protection of some at-risk species,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote in a December 2012 email.

Today, the land owner, Suwannee River Water Management District, says the Ellaville area was hit hard by Hurricane Idoria. Without a land transaction packaged nearly 40 years ago, it is not the type of land the group normally acquires.

In exchange for the state’s forested areas, the district will receive approximately 550 acres of Lee Peanuts Farms farmland from Lee Pinuts Farms LLC’s farmland along the Withcoochee River, a waterway that artisans say offers “significantly higher” value for their property.

The district’s Land Committee will vote on March 11th to formally vote for the swap for consideration, and its governing committee will vote for it at future meetings.

Four days before the committee’s decision, Katherine Saylor hiked through the state forests that could be traded straight away.

Saylor, a biologist and Southeastern representative with a wildlife nonprofit advocate, said she and Florida Forest Service staff saw “really clear evidence” of the habitat that flourishes.

Even in part of the facility where harvested slash pine has been reduced to stumps, Sayler has found a burrow with signs of a tannish brown turtle living inside. The remaining large long-leaf pine trees in the habitat that once ruled the southeast coastal plains of America spread across the 300-acre Ellavil region.

“It’s a very unique ecosystem with tall, beautiful trees,” Saylor said in an interview.

After her hike, Sayler observed the Land Committee on March 11th. When officials gathered to discuss the exchange of land, she outlined what she saw on the state forest property.

“The district has no longer demonstrated that the parcel is no longer of conservation value,” she told them.

She cited public protests against a similar land swap proposal revealed by the Tampa Bay Times in August.

The Desantis administration added that the land exchange will be swapped for the Cabinet Meeting agenda at the last minute in June. Discussions of the deal during that meeting lasted less than 30 seconds when state officials lit it green. As with the Ellaville deal, as part of the swap, the state must determine that forest land is “no longer necessary for conservation purposes.” Progress in withlacoochee trading appears to be stagnant.

“It is very important for districts to follow these types of conduct law letters,” Saylor said. “That’s why wildlife advocates recommend rejecting this proposal to convert ordered goffer turtle habitat into peanut fields.”

District spokesman Troy Roberts said the land owned by Lee Peanuts Farm contains more than 400 acres within the flood plain, extending more than a mile along the Withlacoochee River.

The property has a spring called Stuart Spring, which drains over 650,000 gallons of water every day, Roberts said. The land is home to mature long-leaf pine trees and healthy wire grasses. It also connects to other lands owned by the district.

Suwannee River Water Managers used the Land Management Trust Fund to purchase the land they wanted to trade in in 1988, and the parcel was part of a large transaction spanning several counties, Roberts said. Staff have worked with the Florida Forest Service to restore long-leaf pine habitats in Twin Rivers State Forest since.

In a letter dated March 10th, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee’s top official outlined to the head of the Suwanee River Water Management Board of Directors of how important the state’s forest land is to Florida’s wildlife species.

“The Ellavil region is ecologically important,” wrote Jennifer Goff of the state’s Species Conservation Department, as it is a habitat for species such as swallows, kestrels, Eastern indigo snakes, gopher frogs, fox squirrels and Florida black bears.

“And previous (wildlife staff) observations in the Elavir tubes show that the area supports a large, viable population of gopher turtles,” Goff writes.

According to Goff, the state led the population count of Gopher turtles in April 2017, finding up to 440 turtles in the state’s forested areas.

Still, if the land exchange is approved, Goff said the wildlife agency will “work closely with new landowners to ensure the continued health of the turtles in this population.” Turtles and their burrows are protected under state law, and construction on the state’s forested areas will require permission to relocate them from wildlife agencies.

Goff also noted that the proposed exchange would affect hunting opportunities for deer, Türkiye and other small species.

Elizabeth Fleming, a senior Florida representative with wildlife advocates, said advocacy groups see the value of the approximately 550 acres of land the state acquires along the banks of the Withrackuch River.

“The publicly owned things we assume are safe, like this forest, may not be safe. We have to keep an eye on these things,” Fleming said. “In this case, they want to trade the Gopher turtle for peanuts.”