KEYSTONE HEIGHTS—North Florida Land Trust is set to begin work on its stewardship department headquarters with funding from an anonymous source. The gift will allow the department to improve the facility, improve the roads surrounding the property, and create a greenhouse that will support the restoration and management of NFLT’s nature preserves.

“These renovations will be transformative for our land stewardship team and the work they do to restore and manage the 14,000 acres and counting that we have in our portfolio,” said NFLT President Alison DeFoor.

“The investment in our stewardship program and its infrastructure allows our highly skilled team to be more efficient and allows them to manage and restore the land without relying on outside contractors. It saves money by allowing us to bring the work in-house so our donorship dollars can go to saving even more natural spaces," she said. 

The creation of the greenhouse will enable NFLT to grow approximately 200,000 plugs of various native plant species like wiregrass, blazing star, lopsided Indian grass and prairie dropseed grass. With this in-house resource for plugs, the stewardship team can restore the continuity of various species throughout the habitats on NFLT preserves, which are important for wildlife such as gopher tortoises and the eastern indigo snake.

Cultivating these plugs will supplement the prescribed fire program used to manage the land, providing NFLT with additional future cost savings and allowing the organization to be more efficient in supporting the viability and growth of the ecosystems in its 26 preserves.

The improvements to the stewardship headquarters at Smith Lake Preserve in Clay County will help protect essential equipment that the nonprofit land conservation organization uses to execute its land management plan without using outside contractors. NFLT can implement land management strategies using in-house resources to perform duties such as prescribed fire, removal of exotic/invasive species, and repairing fences. The investment adds value to the stewardship facility, supports the overall health of the stewardship operations, and provides long-term sustainability for the facility.