Florida Conservation Group Inc.

“A copy of 990 is mailed to each board member. Each member reviews the tax return for accuarcy, with notification back to the chairman for execution and processing with the irs.”

“Annualy the board reviews any conflicts of interest of any board member and any related financial dealings.”

“Any written request will be complied with within 10 business days at no charge for copying, processing or mailing response.”

“Mission is to seek protection of land and water resources through restoration and conservation; and conducting education and outreach on the ecological and economic importance of natural lands. We protect land from development and protect and restore water resources.”

“Land protection we work to protect the most important areas for water and wildlife, with a focus on the southern peninsula of florida. Over the past year we submitted applications representing over 57,000 acres of land with the state's rural and family lands protection program and the florida forever program. This entailed: submitting detailed applications, conducting ecological evaluations and advocating for the properties in front of decision making bodies, florida forever is our state land protection program and is a national model for science-based land protection; the focus is on protecting our most important natural resources. The rural and family lands protection program is our state's agricultural easement program the focus is on protecting our most important agricultural lands. Both programs are very competitive. The properties we submitted are now eligible for state funding to ensure their permanent protection and we will continue to advocate for their protection. We work with many state, federal and regional agencies as well as landowners to protect these lands.”

“Advocacy and outreach we continued working with landowners to develop and implement conservation plans for their properties. We are active throughout southwest and southcentral florida. There are myriad of different state and federal conservation programs available; the challenge is to bring together the best fit for each landowner and property, as well as to secure the appropriate funding for each property. Over the past year, we met with 58 different landowners, to provide outreach and the various conservation programs that are available to protect and manage private land for conservation. We conducted one-on one outreach with landowners to provide information on conservation programs. We are currently working with various landowners to apply for funding and advocate the protection of their lands. We also hosted 5 smaller group meetings with landowners to discuss conservation easement programs available to them. We also worked with the united states fish and wildlife service national wildlife refuge system to reach out to landowners on the new everglades to gulf conservation area. The proposed conservation area will encompass 4 million acres and is an opportunity area, where landowners can sell their lands to usfws for conservation. We helped lead the education efforts for this proposed area. We also hosted 3 larger meetings with landowners on this initiative.”

“Science the everglades to gulf conservation area we partnered with the university of florida's center for landscape conservation planning and the u.s. Fish and wildlife service (usfws) to provide the science foundation for the usfws' effort to establish an everglades to gulf conservation area. Within this proposed 4-million-acre conservation area in southwest and south-central florida, the usfws would work with willing landowners to pursue conservation easements or feetitle acquisitions. Land protection in southwest florida is critical because this area is home to over 70 federally or state-listed threatened and endangered species including the florida panther, florida scrub jay, and crested caracara. However, this ecologically diverse area faces threats from climate change, rapid population growth, and land use intensification. Protected lands, including those within the florida wildlife corridor, would improve species' resilience in the face of these threats. Land protection also supports family farms and ranches and improves water quality."”

“Landowner assistance florida conservation group (fcg) and our partner common ground ecology (cge) assisted florida nrcs at the state, area, and field office levels by hiring three ranchland management specialists who, along with cge ecological staff, provided programmatic consultation to state conservationists, guidance to district conservationists and field office staff on grazing planning organization and process, and prescribed grazing technical assistance directly to local ranchers enrolled in nrsc cost-share programs. This assistance included the evaluation of land for improved grazing management and the development of final prescribed grazing plans. Grazing plans were provided to producers to implement, improving the quality and quantity of surface water by promoting native and desired species composition and decreasing soil compaction and nutrient run-off. Outcomes have been evaluated based on consistent feedback from nrcs that our team is satisfying actual grazing assistance needs at all levels, resulting from initial standardization work that lead to an average production rate over the final 3 months of 1 plan per 4.6 days, totaling 21 approved prescribed grazing plans covering 15,224 total acres of improved management across 12 counties. The florida conservation group (fcg) began this project upon receiving the fully executed award agreement on 12/17/2022 and in the first 18 months have focused on obtaining data from the natural resources conservation service on those ranches that were on their prescribed burn backlog list for cost share programs. They provided two lists to our team in august 2022, and we immediately began contacting landowners. It was discovered that most of the data on the backlog list were outdated, with most burn projects having been completed without nrcs knowledge. Changes to nrcs staff prevented us from receiving a new updated list because of privacy concerns not linked to our specific project. Our team then worked with nrcs to pivot to their easement program to more easily identify target lands that need to be burned. While sorting through the data and programmatic issues we built a team to address these lists while also recommending gopher tortoise habitat management activities on 4,762 acres of properties which had requested assistance from fcg outside of nrcs programs. Common ground ecology (cge) built a burn team by hiring qualified personnel and sending any with less experience to trainings and workshops to further develop their abilities. Since this project was initiated, the cge burn team has worked on 17 burns of 1,017 acres of gopher tortoise habitat on private and state lands, with management completely planned and prepped on another 3 of the easement properties, totaling 1,534 acres. Sw florida has received a record amount of rainfall this year, and these flooded sites must dry out before fire will carry. In this time, fcg and cge has continued to consult with private ranchers on planning and implementing prescribed fire to increase gopher tortoise populations on another 6 sites totaling 8,075 acres.”

“Professional fees-advocacy 39,337 0 0 professional fees-land protec 26,000 0 0 professional -ecological eval 77,160 0 0 professional-landowner assist 370,505 0 0 administative assistance 0 24,757 0 ajm conservation & cattle llc 420,000 0 0 social meida copywriting 14,000 0 0 adp payroll service 0 1,483 0 total 947,002 26,240 0”