Wildlife Corridor

When picturing Florida, many minds are drawn to sunny skies and sandy beaches. But it's the swamp and scrublands in the state's interior that environmental advocates are looking to call attention to.

The Florida Department of Transportation has been able to get permits from the federal government, including for projects in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “Moving Florida Forward” initiative, as a major legal battle continues over permitting for projects that affect wetlands, a department official said Thursday. Siding with environmental groups, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in February vacated a 2020 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that shifted permitting authority from federal officials to the state.

While Florida has sought to speed up the case, an appeals-court battle about permitting authority for projects that affect wetlands likely will not be resolved until late this year — at the soonest.The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Tuesday issued an order that gave a schedule for the state, the federal government and environmental groups to file briefs in the case. The earliest briefs will be filed in August, and final briefs will be filed in November.

Florida has asked a federal appeals court for “expedited” consideration of a legal battle about permitting authority for projects that affect wetlands. Attorneys for the state filed a motion last week asking the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to move quickly in Florida’s appeal of a ruling that vacated a 2020 decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to shift permitting authority from federal officials to the state.

When the wildlife corridor was envisioned, subdivisions with 10,000 houses and hundreds of thousands of feet of office space were not planned.

As agriculture gives way to planned developments, many worry the Florida panther is on a path to doom.Environmentalists say planned communities — Kingston in eastern Lee and Bellmar in eastern Collier and both the size of small cities — could hurtle the Florida panther from the Endangered Species List to extinction.

The Florida panthers’ numbers dwindled so quickly over the the early 1900s that hunting them was banned in 1958. In 1967, panthers were the first animal to be put on the federal Endangered Species List, and in 1973 the puma, a big cat relative, was named a Florida protected species.

When Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act into law in the summer of 2021, the occasion was met with a flurry of glowing headlines and general celebration by conservationists across the state. But the effort to protect the integrity of Florida’s landscape is a race against time. It remains entirely legal to develop land within much of the corridor’s boundaries, even if such development would destroy the landscape-scale connectivity the law is meant to preserve. The corridor, in other words, remains under siege by development. And the state and federal governments have not been too eager to stop it.

Pointing to what it called “irreparable injuries,” Florida has asked a federal appeals court to put on hold a district judge’s ruling as a legal battle continues to play out about permitting authority for projects that affect wetlands.Attorneys for the state filed a motion late Thursday at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia seeking a stay of ruling by U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss. Moss’ ruling rejected a 2020 decision by the federal government to shift permitting authority to the state.

Governor DeSantis has directed $750 million a year to the state’s environmental needs; critics say his is misspending — but supporters say it's money well spent