Nokuse Plantation

Nokuse Plantation is a nature preserve in

longleaf pine forests.^[1] Tortoises recovered from local urbanised areas have been released into the reserve.^[1]

Davis focused on buying land for Nokuse in the "Northwest Florida Greenway area" because of the availability of large tracts of land and because the Florida Panhandle was one of six designated biological, hyperdiverse, "hotspots" in the United States.^[4] Davis spent an estimated $90 million purchasing land for Nokuse. The majority of property was purchased from timber companies and is being restored to "Piney woods" with eight million seedlings planted as of 2015.^[5] Longleaf pine forests once covered about 40 million acres (160,000 km²) across the American South but almost all of those original trees had been cut down by the 1930s.^[1] A wildlife underpass connects Nokuse with Eglin Air Force Base, on which there is remnant longleaf pine forest, with some 500-year-old trees.^[6]

Nokuse includes a 28,000-square-foot (2,600 m²), $12 million nature discovery center named for the evolutionary biologist,

E.O. Wilson.^[7] Davis has pledged a large share of his fortune to this environmental education center and to the conservation trust.^[1]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Block, Melissa (June 17, 2015). "Gambler-Turned-Conservationist Devotes Fortune To Florida Nature Preserve". NPR. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
^ "The Nature Conservancy Honors M.C. and Stella Davis". Nature.org. March 9, 2015. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
^ "About Us". Nokuse.org. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
^ Ritchie, Bruce. "Getting Back into the Woods at Nokuse Plantation". LandScope America. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
^ Breyer, Melissa (June 18, 2015). "Why did this businessman buy 53,000 acres in Florida?". Treehugger.com. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
^ Ward Jr., Carlton (April 1, 2015). "Bombing Range Is National Example for Wildlife Conservation". National Geographic. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on April 6, 2015. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
^ Hiss, Tony (September 2014). "Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?". Smithsonian. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
^ Butler, Tom; Vizcaíno, Antonio (2008). "Nokuse Plantation: The Once and Future Forest". Wildlands Philanthropy, The Great American Tradition. Earth Aware Editions.