CONSERVATION NOW: Protecting land and water is a bipartisan way to mitigate climate impacts.

• Author: Ness, Erik

In 2021, twenty-one Florida panthers died while crossing roads. The panther known as K373 was the last of them. "K" stands for kitten, a label applied when she was microchipped in 2012, weighing in at three pounds. A panther can live fifteen or more years, and while K373 died just beyond her reproductive prime, she probably still had a couple more litters in her. The current wild population of Florida panthers now stands somewhere between 120 and 230. From 2014 to the end of last year, more than 200 panthers were killed crossing the road.

Panthers moving about may be a sign that this endangered species is recovering. Unfortunately, it also puts them in peril.

Thankfully, in spring 2021, the state legislature unanimously passed the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act, which Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law last June. It allocates $300 million to purchase and connect parcels of land, allowing the panther and other vulnerable species to expand their range while also protecting groundwater and helping to buffer threats from climate change.

Florida is often seen as a battleground state where real estate is king, but this conservation win happened because it was popular across the partisan divide. During the 2020 election, conservation-funding ballot measures passed in three Florida counties--Manatee, Collier, and Volusia--that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump.

Panthers--also called pumas, or mountain lions--roam the length of the Americas. For many years, they were parsed into thirty-two subspecies, but modern genetics has decided there are only two. In 1995, eight Texas panthers were transplanted to southwestern Florida to inject genetic diversity into the faltering population of about thirty remaining panthers. The population began to rebound; the animal has captured Florida's imagination.

"The corridor concept has re-energized public opinion around land acquisition," says Audubon Florida Executive Director Julie Wraithmell. She argues that environmental action enjoys bipartisan support because the twin pillars of Florida's economy are real estate and tourism. "If our water quality goes south, if there aren't places for families to play, it undermines all of our economic prosperity."

We face overwhelming environmental challenges, headlined by climate change, and overwhelming political challenges, defined by deep division. Can the process of coming together to care for nature help lead us back out of the political wilderness?

Sunrise over a shallow estuary in Florida's Nature Coast, near Cedar Key, Florida. This 6,000-acre parcel of land is the Caber Coastal Connector and is highly prized by the Florida forever land acquisition program.

Just days after his Inauguration in January 2021...