Audubon Must Once Again Protect Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

For 70 years, Audubon has protected our Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and the wildlife that decision it house — first from poachers, then from logging. Right this moment, greater than 80,000 annual guests get pleasure from our 2.25-mile boardwalk via the biggest remaining stand of old-growth cypress forest on the planet, a chosen Wetland of Worldwide Significance. The Sanctuary spans twenty sq. miles of more and more uncommon freshwater marsh, cypress swamp, and pine flatwoods, supporting iconic wildlife like Florida panthers, Snail Kites, Roseate Spoonbills, and ghost orchids. We need your help.

A New Menace

The proposed Kingston improvement upstream from the Sanctuary’s northern boundary is among the largest threats this particular place has ever confronted. Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary at the moment has the cleanest water high quality within the area, which this improvement will nearly actually degrade.

Why it Issues

Water and fertilizer use by the ten,000 houses and 750,000 sq. toes of economic area proposed at Kingston threaten the survival of the Sanctuary’s marshes, whereas the conversion of this sprawling 6,700+ acre tract from agriculture to rooftops will sever wildlife journey corridors, particularly for Florida panthers. The Kingston improvement will severely prohibit the flexibility of conservation neighbors to make use of prescribed fireplace to take care of habitats — a follow that in flip reduces the danger of enormous, damaging wildfires that might additionally threaten the proposed Kingston houses and companies.

Audubon spent a number of years attempting to barter with the developer to construct commonsense protections for Florida panthers and water high quality safety into their designs, with out their substantial cooperation. We shared our considerations with allowing companies within the hopes they’d situation their approvals on requiring protecting measures for wildlife and water, with no response.

Now we’re dismayed to be taught that the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers has issued the undertaking’s final main allow, clearing the way in which for this risk to Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary to proceed.

What Audubon is Doing

This leaves us just one remaining recourse: To problem the validity of the allow in court docket. We don’t undertake litigation flippantly, however when a neighbor proposes to trigger avoidable impacts that threaten the integrity of our property, we can not sit idly by. Particularly when that property is the beating coronary heart of untamed Southwest Florida, house to panthers and ghost orchids, spoonbills and storks, in addition to historical bald cypress that can’t battle for themselves.

We Want Your Assist

Defending Corkscrew is neither low cost nor straightforward, and we’ll want your assist.

Help us stand up for the survival of this special place and its irreplaceable wildlife.