South-Central and Southwest Florida's Prairie Regions
South-central and southwest Florida are home to the “Great Florida Prairie”, a vast grassland landscape. This includes the Florida dry prairie ecosystem– native upland grasses, palmettos, and scattered shrubs dominating a regional landscape that also contains wet prairies and marshes, hammocks, pine flatwoods, patches of scrub, and forested wetlands. The Great Florida Prairie is home to many unique species found nowhere else including the Florida grasshopper sparrow, Audubon’s crested caracara, Florida sandhill crane, Florida burrowing owl, southeastern American kestrel, and many other federal and state listed species or species of concern. The ranchlands of the Great Florida Prairie maintain the historical open land uses and grassland systems that support these species as well as providing a vast connected landscape that is the heart of the Florida Wildlife Corridor. The region is also an essential part of the Everglades, Charlotte Harbor, and St. Johns River watersheds, which cover approximately 60 percent of the watershed area of our state. Without these ranches, most of the remaining open prairie lands of south-central and southwest Florida would be lost to development that would destroy this unique habitat — as well as negatively impact our water resources. FCG is dedicated towards working with ranchers to protect the ranchlands that comprise the Great Florida Prairie.
