16/05/2025
Tonight, the State posted a meeting agenda with an alarming proposal: To trade a portion of vulnerable and valuable Guana River Wildlife Management Area in St. Johns County to a private entity—likely for development.
We need your voice to stop both this swap and this dangerous precedent.
Audubon and others were surprised to see the Department of Environmental Protection issue a public notice Wednesday morning calling an unscheduled meeting of the state Acquisition and Restoration Council for next Wednesday, May 21.
After close of business, the meeting’s agenda link quietly went live on the website, revealing an unremarkable agenda with the exception of one item, proposing to swap a choice piece of state-owned real estate in the heart of St. Johns County’s Guana River Wildlife Management Area for a constellation of parcels across the state. While the proposed swap would provide five new acres for every one currently owned, the proposal is light on details.
Development Threatens
The agenda item says the wetlands of the existing parcel will be “avoided”—meaning the applicant intends to develop the uplands into some other land use. This could mean development that could severely impact the conservation area and surrounding wetlands, including a golf course or housing. Such a proposal would bulldoze habitat Florida has invested significant taxpayer dollars in restoring over the last 30 years, home to gopher tortoises and a popular recreational destination for hunters and hikers.
Moreover, the change in land use would likely impede waterfowl hunting on Guana Lake and would make the application of prescribed fire to adjacent Guana Wildlife Management Area, Guana State Park, and Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve far more difficult. Stormwater runoff from a new development would further harm the water quality of Guana Lake, a designated Outstanding Florida Waterway.
Audubon Stands Against this Land Swap
Even without all these shortcomings, the fundamental issue remains: Florida’s conservation lands are not held in trust for the public simply until a developer wants them. There is no way this parcel can meet the standard of "no longer needed for conservation purposes" needed to dispose of conservation lands. Join Audubon in calling on ARC to reject this item outright.
https://act.audubon.org/a/arclandswap
