Babcock Ranch Preserve Management Plan

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
Florida Division of Forestry

Pandion wrote and facilitated the public review of this complex management plan for the 74,000-acre Babcock Ranch Preserve, Florida’s largest land aquisition. The purchase and management of the Preserve were high profile and garnered statewide attention from political and stakeholder interests.

Pandion’s team of ecological, land management, and recreation experts wrote the plan to guide activities on this historic working ranch while also meeting its new role as publicly accessed conservation land. The plan includes an inventory of natural and cultural resources and addresses management of ranch operations, vegetation and natural communities, fire, silviculture and forest resources, soils, hydrology, fish and wildlife, and public use and education.

Guidance for writing the plan was provided by a diverse stakeholder group and by the management plan partners, which included two state agencies, two counties, a nonprofit, and a private corporation.

This complex process involved managing a legislatively mandated stakeholder input and public review program throughout the course of the 18-month contract. This included:

Creating and maintaining a project website for public access to the plan process.
Establishing and coordinating a Management Advisory Group (MAG) of diverse stakeholders.
Designing and facilitating the MAG meeting to engage stakeholders in identifying planning considerations and to collect input at the beginning of the plan process.
Facilitating Plan Development Workshop meetings of the management plan partners to develop goals and objectives that incorporate the MAG input and guide the writing of the plan.
Facilitating dialogue between all parties responsible for the plan to enable consensus decisions on the document’s content.
Hosting two public hearings, one in each county, to collect public comments.
Attending a series of state approval meetings, including the Acquisition and Restoration Council, Board of Trustees Cabinet Aides, and the Governor's Cabinet.