Preserving natural Florida.

It was an improbable task. Travel to the heart of north Florida's largest city and find wilderness. With maps in hand and some vague directions, I headed into Jacksonville past a skyline of tall buildings, turning before the wide St. Johns River, the area's dominant spot of nature. My directions said take congested Lem Turner Road, although as I passed fast food stands, pawnshops, and liquor stores, I wondered just how wild my quarry could be.

I crossed the Ribault River and turned west onto a narrow road that carried me through one of the city's older neighborhoods. Two blocks shy of the Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School, I struck pay dirt.

A long, green swath of wilderness beckoned, and I eagerly began working my way through a tangle of muscadine vines and palmetto, beneath a hammock of arching live oaks. A black snake--a harmless racer--dropped noisily from a low sable palm branch and disappeared into the underbrush. I smelled the brackish Ribault before I could really see it. Being low tide, the exposed mud flats were exuding their characteristically distinctive sulfur-like odor.

Determined to get a river view, I climbed a high bank and looked across windswept spartina grass. Down below, tiny fiddler crabs raced along the mud, the males each waving an oversized pincer as minnows and larger fish riffled the water's surface. Majestic great egrets, stark white against a backdrop of greens, browns, and blues, stood like motionless ballet dancers along the water's edge. An osprey whistled and an endangered wood stork soared past. The place was alive!

Picture school kids using this 35-acre living science project as an environmental science classroom--squishing their toes in mud, handling dip nets and seines, and studying the rich marine life--and you're starting to think like Jacksonville these days.

Tracts like the Ribault, pronounced "Ree-bolt" with a French accent, form the heart of what is known as the Jacksonville Preservation Project, an ambitious plan to protect choice parcels of the city's remaining undeveloped land. The project was launched in January 1999, when Mayor John Delaney announced his goal of raising more than $300 million to preserve wilderness in a city that grew to 841 square miles with its 1986 merger with Duval County. That merger made Jacksonville the largest U.S. city in terms of land area.

"We can use taxpayer money in one of two ways," Delaney said in unveiling his plan, which he says came to him one day while fishing. "We can either expand our roadways, which will only encourage uncontrolled growth and create 12-lane parking lots on our roadways. Or we can have the vision to preserve large tracts of land now and give our citizens the opportunity to experience these unspoiled natural greenspaces. When faced with the option of a generic strip mall on every corner or a beautiful green park for families to enjoy, I think the choice is a natural one."

As an unintended consequence, the project soon put Jacksonville at number one among cities for protected parkland (57,373 acres) and propelled it into the top 10 in terms of percentage of acreage devoted to parks.

The first $21 million came from the city's coffers, the next $50 million from the S2.2 billion Better Jacksonville Plan, a voter-approved referendum held in 2000. Citizens voted to raise sales tax by half a cent to help fund growth management, environmental projects, transportation needs, park rehabilitation, and economic development. The remaining money came from such sources as the state's $3 billion Florida Forever land acquisition trust fund and the municipal electric utility for key land purchases near electric and water utility properties.

Two nonprofits, The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land, were signed on as intermediaries while agreements were made with the National Park Service and the Florida Park Service to manage large tracts purchased near or contiguous to their holdings.

The preservation project has a multi-fold purpose: manage growth, protect environmentally endangered lands, improve water quality and increase public access to natural areas. Because the project helps contain sprawl in many outlying areas, the city saves money by avoiding expensive infrastructure costs for road widening, schools, sewers, and social services. Cities in Florida and elsewhere are taking a keen interest in the approach.

"I drove all over my area looking for a suitable piece of property to be included in the preservation project," says Gwen Yates, a city councilwoman whose district includes much of the Ribault River, "and I found one right under my nose, in my own neighborhood." Her proposed tract was quickly included by the mayor's 11-member citizen advisory board, which evaluates nominations from landowners, citizens, conservation groups, and political leaders.

The Ribault River tract, an inner-city mini-wilderness with a towering century-old slash pine, met eligibility requirements for environmentally sensitive land that could provide public access to a scenic water body. Plus, the owner was a willing seller.

"It's a beautiful piece of property," says Susan Grandin, director of the Trust for Public Land's Jacksonville office. "And it's in an underserved neighborhood with three schools in close proximity. It can serve as an environmental education magnet."

According to Mark Middlebrook, preservation project administrator for the city, the tract met another important criteria. "We are very keen on purchasing any kind of waterfront access," he says. "The southeast part of the city developed very fast and there is little access for the public, so we wanted to make sure we have waterfront access in other parts of the city for future generations."

Soon after the land's purchase, Middlebrook organized a public hearing in the neighborhood to receive feedback. Ideas included observation platforms and boardwalks, but many neighbors were nervous about the land being developed as a park, even one for passive recreation.

"People were concerned that the criminal element would take over," says Yates. "They were just scared. I really envisioned a mini national park, but our people aren't ready yet. My heart aches. We asked the administration to hold onto the money (for park development) so we can work with the neighborhood to improve security at our other parks. We'll clean up the land and re-vegetate it. Hopefully, the neighbors will he inspired to want to do more." In the meantime, the tract will remain open to visitors, including schoolchildren.

For those seeking a broader wilderness experience but still within the city, a 20-minute drive north from the Ribault tract takes you through largely upscale neighborhoods, past rolling green country clubs and massive shopping centers, to the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve near the mouth of the St. Johns.

Timucuan preserve is a national park, and the Preservation Project has helped to expand its boundaries to more than 46,000 acres--more than doubling the land within the preserve. Visitors to the Timucuan Preserve/Fort Caroline Visitor's Center can view historic displays and walk through an old-growth live oak hammock to learn about early native inhabitants and the first European colonists. A reconstructed French fort is testament to 1560s French settlers and the tug-of-war for control of northeast Florida that lasted more than three centuries.

More than three-quarters of the Timucuan preserve is a wildlife-rich salt marsh estuary that can be best appreciated by boat. The city and the National Park Service will address access needs by offering water taxi service next year. "It's quite extraordinary to see a natural area that large near the city," says Middlebrook.

Another recently purchased large tract follows the 14.5-mile Jacksonville-to-Baldwin Rail Trail in the western part of the county, near the sweeping naval reserve and air station that helped to boost the city's population to nearly 800,000 and still growing. The trail was once part of the CSX railway line and was purchased and developed as part of a joint city/state partnership. Along much of the trail is a maturing canopy of hardwood trees, most notably live oaks with their majestic arching arms festooned with resurrection fern. Wilted and dormant looking in dry weather, the ferns "resurrect" after a rain, true to their namesake.

There are also about 400 acres of old-growth slash and longleaf pine uplands, providing trail users with refreshing scents and welcome shade. City officials plan to enhance the pine canopy by thinning out thickly planted forests to give older longleaf pines more room to spread their crowns. Middlebrook says the city hopes there will be enough land with old-growth longleaf to reintroduce the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

"We will soon have a five-mile park along both sides of the bike trail," says Middlebrook. "The natural parts that people see today will remain natural in the future."

The tract includes the site of the longest continually occupied Civil War encampment in Florida, known as Camp Milton, where AMERICAN FORESTS is helping establish a historic grove of trees. Visitors eventually will view reconstructed 6- to 8-foot-high Confederate-built earthworks that run parallel to scenic McGirts Creek. Several skirmishes occurred in the area, with the camp eventually occupied by Union forces in 1864.

In the four years since the plan was conceived, the city has purchased all its initially targeted large tracts. This success rate is due in part to the longterm desires of several large landowners. "Many tracts had been with certain families for generations," says Middlebrook. "The owners had a choice. They could sell to a developer and one day their grandchildren would drive by and see subdivisions, or they could sell to us and their grandchildren would see a park. Some landowners sold their land to us at a lower price for that reason."

To date, the preservation project has acquired more than 35,337 acres; some of that was to have harbored seven or eight subdivisions or more than 2,000 waterfront houses, he says.

Much of the land being purchased is in a greenbelt category, which allows landowners to ranch, farm, or timber at a low agricultural rate. Land assessed for potential development pays a much higher tax rate. Because the designation will not change, there will be no significant drop in tax revenues, countering detractors who claim too much land is being taken off tax rolls.

The land may generate money for Jacksonville in other ways, however. Ecotourism ventures are being studied, and the city is touting the positive impacts on environmental and recreational health. And young people are getting new opportunities to learn environmental education first-hand.

The city also plans to cut planted pines from so-called preservation parks when they're marketable and replace them with natives, so that "in a couple of decades, residents here will he able to see forests similar to what was here in the early 1800s," Middlebrook says.

Although the general reaction to the preservation project has been favorable, the real test will come in 2003, when both Mayor Delaney's term and the current preservation program expire. His successor will have to decide whether to renew the program by seeking more funding and targeting other undeveloped areas for preservation.

Perhaps he or she will remember the words of noted Florida author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: "I do not know how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to." I think about one, and smile as I imagine how many third graders it will take to stretch around that old slash pine along the banks of the Ribault River.

Doug Alderson of Tallahassee. Florida, is a freelance writer and photographer.