Each parcel of land on this example street in North Port is individually owned and subject to being completely clear-cut for residential development, removing vital habitat for our wildlife and erasing our tree canopy and native plant life.
Many neighborhoods in Sarasota and Charlotte Counties still consist of streets like this one with a mix of natural land parcels and developed-residential home parcels.
Rapid land development is demolishing wildlife habitat DAILY. We acquire neighborhood land to help retain nature's biodiversity and ensure at least some native wildlife will retain their homes to remain within forever, while humans do the same around them.
We can coexist!
We acquire and permanently conserve neighborhood land for preservation of, and education and research about, neighborhood wildlife, native plants, trees and soil.
In other words, WE SAVE "Stepping Stones" of land for NEIGHBORHOOD NATURE.
[We are not an advocacy entity]
We first launched our neighborhood land conservation mission within the City of North Port in the Spring of 2020. The concept of neighborhood land conservation was a very foreign one to many at that time so we wanted to keep our initial effort small, but it was always the goal to expand into Sarasota and Charlotte Counties.
As of 9/5/2025 we've acquired 48 parcels across North Port, Harbour Heights, Port Charlotte, Deep Creek, El Jobean and Englewood and South Gulf Cove. See the "Protected Areas/Gallery" tab of our website for further details.
We are largely an all-volunteer organization; we have only one paid employee as of late 2025, a part-time Administrative Assistant.
In the future we plan to expand our mission and land acquisitions into other areas of Sarasota and Charlotte Counties and perhaps beyond to other areas of Florida.
Conserving natural land in our neighborhoods allows for the preservation/protection of, education about, and co-existence with, our local native flora and fauna, especially threatened species such as the Gopher Tortoise and Florida Scrub-jay.
Conservation of natural land amidst residential development preserves wildlife habitat, threatened and/or endangered species and biodiversity; maintains scenic landscape for people; helps reduce flooding; helps filter water/improve water quality; and maintains the tree canopy and native vegetation that serve as filters for our air. Conserving land increases property values near these greenspaces too.
When we conserve land, all living things win.
What Is The Neighborhood Environment Made Up Of?
Sarasota/Charlotte neighborhoods are composed of a diverse range of natural communities, often referred to as habitat: scrub, scrubby flatwoods, mesic hammocks, mesic (pine) flatwoods and freshwater wetlands, that are experiencing daily alteration or destruction as a result of development.
Learn more about Florida's natural communities through the Florida Natural Area Inventory here:
https://www.fnai.org/species-communities/natcom-guide
Without neighborhood conservation land amidst residential development it will be impossible to maintain the biodiversity that is necessary for the long term survival of our native flora and fauna that preceded us for decades.
― Baba Dioum
The vast majority of North Port is zoned for a variety of development as shown on the Zoning Map above. North Port is 104 square miles (65,560 acres) and there is no City-owned formally designated conservation land within its neighborhoods beyond the parcels we have acquired and conserved or those that have been conserved by private land owners.
Imagine 65,560 acres clear-cut and developed as the years pass by. Where will the wildlife go? Erasure of our current native plant population and local native tree canopy is a certainty too.
This same scenario is the case for many of our surrounding area neighborhoods including Port Charlotte, Harbour Heights, Venice, Englewood, Punta Gorda and Sarasota which is why we have expanded our mission beyond where it began in North Port.
Without conservation land to create greenspace for nature to remain as our neighborhoods continue to develop, it will be impossible to maintain the biodiversity that is necessary for the long term survival of our native flora and fauna.