THE MAPS
Mapping The Florida Wildlife Corridor
Water Color Map
The vision of the Corridor is depicted beautifully in this watercolor map; original painting by Mike Reagan, designed by Carlton Ward Jr, Tom Hoctor, Richard Hilsenbeck, Mallory Lykes Dimmitt and Joe Guthrie. Explore the maps that follow to gain further insight on the rich natural heritage of our State, especially within these important lands.
Critical Linkages
Built on a foundation of wildlife corridor work in Florida over two decades, the state’s Florida Ecological Greenways Network (FEGN) identifies priority tracts of land considered most important for providing habitat for wide-ranging species like the Florida panther and Florida black bear, and protecting intact landscapes that provide important ecosystem services. The highest priorities, named “Critical Linkages”, identify the best remaining opportunities to functionally connect all of Florida’s largest existing conservation lands into one functional statewide ecological network.
Corridor
The Florida Wildlife Corridor boundary (2016 update) encompasses 16.7 million acres of connected habitat from Florida Bay to the neighboring states of Georgia and Alabama (shown here in green). This configuration of lands and waters represents the trunk of Florida’s greenways and blueways. This state to regional corridor system is vital to sustain the health of the many regional to local branches that course throughout the rest of Wild Florida.
Corridor Opportunity Areas
The Corridor is composed of hundreds of parcels of protected land, from Flagler County’s 30 acre Bull Creek Campground, to the 1.5 million acre Everglades National Park. The 9.8 million acres of Existing Conservation Area illustrated in light green in the map above includes working lands protected with conservation easements. The dark green extent highlights the roughly 6.9 million acres of unprotected lands that remain. These Corridor Opportunity Areas are high priority lands that connect and support the wild legacy of our parks, preserves, refuges.
Florida Forever Projects
Florida has protected approximately 900,000 acres of conservation land within the Florida Wildlife Corridor through land acquisitions identified within the Florida Forever priority projects. These include full fee acquisitions that the state owns and maintains, as well as less than fee conservation easements, which often remain as working lands owned by the ranchers and timber farms. Many of the key unprotected parcels within the Corridor are part of current Florida Forever Project priorities, shown here in brown.
Focal Areas
Prioritizing corridor protections is important given the population growth rate, the limited land acquisition dollars, and the larger number of unprotected parcels. This map above highlights high priority focal areas which are vulnerable due to their narrow configuration and proximity to development concerns.
Corridor Bottlenecks
A bottleneck is a narrow segment of a wildlife corridor whose width is less than 1 mile. There are 111 bottleneck segments within the Florida Wildlife Corridor. These areas often do not score as high quality habitat due to the influence of adjacent land uses which often involve changes in plant communities (exotic species), altered hydrology, and disrupted fire regimes. As a result, bottlenecks are often not identified as priorities in typical land acquisition ranking programs. These areas however, are often the only remaining threads holding our treasured parks and refuges together. Protecting bottlenecks is a Florida Wildlife Corridor priority.
Major Highway Crossings
Roads represent significant threats to habitat connectivity, resulting in altered hydrology habitat fragmentation and disruptions in plant and animal movements. Nearly 1000 miles of major highways cut across the Florida Wildlife Corridor. As the Florida population grows, adding more cars to the existing road system, the impact on wildlife increases.
Ranch and Silvicultural Lands
Working lands make up the vast majority of the unprotected gaps within the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Ranching and Silviculture are the two largest uses. These millions of acres of working lands represent irreplaceable wildlife value, not just for the purposes of connectivity. Within them are many high quality wetlands, waterways, forests and prairies. Many of the Florida cattle and timber operators manage their lands with care and are among our best wildlife stewards. This map illustrates the distribution and scale of working lands within the corridor. We cannot save wild Florida without these essential partners.
Resource Based Recreation Map
Florida’s natural areas support a wide variety of recreational uses. This map depicts the Federal and State lands and numerous public access points for various uses. This is not an exhaustive map of the thousands of places to engage with wild Florida. Rather it intends to showcase the variety of water and land based opportunities that await the adventurous. We would encourage you to pick a new place to explore this weekend, whether it is one of our 175 State Parks, or our 43 major springs, our one of our outstanding Florida waterways.
Marine Protected Areas
Our Potential Habitat map series derive from data compiled by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Florida Natural Areas Inventory (FNAI). The maps represent the extent of suitable habitat identified throughout the entire state. Habitat within the corridor is highlighted. Suitable habitat is not always occupied by the subject species.