The mission of the Florida Forest Service is to protect and manage the forest resources of Florida, ensuring that they will be available for future generations.
We manage over 1 million acres of state forests for multiple public uses, including timber, recreation and wildlife habitat.
We offer technical information and grant programs to landowners to help them improve their forestland. Through wildfire prevention and suppression, we work to protect homeowners from the threat of damage in a natural, fire-dependent environment.
The Florida Endangered and Threatened Plant Conservation Program originated in 1992 to work toward the recovery of federally listed endangered and threatened plant species in Florida. This program is open to any individual or non-federal institution planning to conduct a project to conserve federal- and state-regulated rare plants. These projects are funded on an annual basis only, and multi-year projects have no guarantee of successive funding. No projects may occur on federal lands.
The program is funded through grants from the U.S. Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) under Section 6 of the U. S. Endangered Species Act. The program issues small to medium-size grants commonly ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 per year. These grants are given as 75:25 matching funds. Each project is responsible for acquiring the project's match (25%) for the federal funds (75%).
The goal of the Florida Plant Conservation Program is to restore and maintain existing populations of listed plants on public land and on private lands managed for conservation purposes. Previous or ongoing projects address demography, monitoring, reintroduction, germination, pollination and other aspects of population ecology.