A new organization is not waiting around for state and local governments to conserve environmentally sensitive lands.
The Cypress Cove Conservancy is made up of local activists and they want to preserve land by buying it themselves.
The organization’s president and founder Bobbie Lee Davenport said the only way to guarantee land will be protected is to own it.
Davenport said she’s concerned about development in areas like eastern Collier County, which features habitat for the endangered Florida panther.
“We have to not sit and wait for some group or some organization or someone else to do it,” she said. “It's going to take all of us working together to accomplish what needs to be accomplished, to save the wildlife in this area.”
Activists established the conservancy in December.
Its first target is a roughly 200-acre property in southeast Collier County.
The group is raising $800,000 to buy it. The ultimate goal is to acquire surrounding lands that eventually connect to thepanther refuge.