Approximately one hour west of Jacksonville lies a vast wilderness known as Osceola National Forest. Part of a great matrix of forests and wetlands in northern Florida and southern Georgia, Osceola connects with the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, and together they protect the headwaters of the iconic Suwannee River.

One of the country’s most unique and diverse landscapes, this region has been a priority for conservation for decades. It is one of the last remaining strongholds for the imperiled longleaf pine ecosystem. Osceola is also the northern hub of the Ocala to Osceola (“O2O”) corridor, a critical linkage within the Florida Wildlife Corridor.

Our Role

The Conservation Fund has worked for years to conserve critical lands around Osceola National Forest. In 2023, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, we completed a multiyear effort to protect roughly 14,000 acres known as the Suwannee River Woodlands. Purchased from two willing landowners, we sustainably managed the lands as a working forest during our ownership. Now in USFS ownership, the lands will be restored to their historic longleaf pine ecosystem. The effort builds upon the successful protection of roughly 9,800 adjacent acres that were transferred from the Fund to the Forest Service in 2018. In total, The Conservation Fund has protected a connected landscape of more than 23,000 acres in this area, and we have completed additional projects in Georgia around the Okefenokee Swamp and the Suwannee River.

The protection of these properties was made possible through Working Forests — an innovative program dedicated to mitigating climate change, strengthening rural economies and protecting natural ecosystems through the permanent conservation of at-risk working forests across America. Proceeds from The Conservation Fund’s first-ever green bonds enabled us to protect these 14,000 acres. Funding for the land’s permanent protection was provided by the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Felburn Foundation.

Why It Matters

The subject tracts protect the headwaters of the Suwannee River — the second-largest river in Florida and one of the largest remaining free-flowing (undammed) rivers in the Southeast. The Fund has worked over the past 20 years to protect the watershed of the Suwannee, from its headwaters to its estuary on the Gulf of Mexico. The protection and restoration of this project will expand these efforts, helping to filter the waters in which tens of thousands of people fish and recreate and supporting climate resiliency.

The land also provides habitat for numerous species, including Florida black bear, gopher tortoise and wood stork, and are critical to efforts to restore longleaf pine. Once restored to longleaf — one of the most ecologically diverse ecosystems in the world — other species associated with this ecosystem will begin to return. Longleaf pine ecosystems provide habitat for 29 threatened and endangered species and more than 900 plants found nowhere else in the world. Longleaf forests also provide clean air and water and can act as an economic driver for local communities. This project will advance regional efforts to protect and restore 8 million acres of significant longleaf pine ecosystems across the Southeast.

Few projects have generated such support and synergy as the effort to connect Osceola National Forest and Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. More than 30 years ago these two conservation areas were not connected. Numerous activities — from mining to development — threatened to cut them off from each other. In 1988, the USFS and numerous state, federal, and nonprofit partners began to build that connection by protecting lands within the “Pinhook Purchase Unit.” With The Conservation Fund’s transfer of these latest properties, more than 80% of the forest has now been protected — a rare and significant milestone and one of the great success stories of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

Learn More

• Our work in Florida
• Working Forests