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Lake Russell. Photo by Bob Blanchard.
Longleaf Destinations By Kirsten Weir and The Nature Conservancy Staff
Longleaf Pine Thrives at The Nature Conservancy’s Disney Wilderness Preserve If you imagine a time before the theme parks of the Orlando area, you conjure images of the incredible natural landscapes and iconic wildlife of Old Florida, with its expansive longleaf pine forests and vast, essential wetlands. Bring yourself back to the present, and you’ll find a place like this thrives today— The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Disney Wilderness Preserve. The 11,500-acre property, located near Kissimmee, is owned, protected, and managed by The Nature Conservancy. In 1992, following a recommendation from Audubon Florida to protect the initial 8,500-acre ranchland from proposed construction of housing subdivisions, TNC worked with the Walt Disney Company and the state of Florida to create a large-scale nature preserve to offset wetland impacts of the development at Walt Disney World. And so, Disney Wilderness Preserve [ 46 ]
was born, restoring historic wetlands across a large landscape, and creating a haven for more than 1,000 species of plants and animals. Today, the Preserve serves as a testament to how bigpicture thinking can create more resilient landscapes. The original cattle ranch had been in operation since the 1940s. Its natural wetlands had been significantly degraded by decades of grazing and creating drainage ditches that altered the water’s natural flow. The Walt Disney Company provided funding for restoration and monitoring, and in 1995, the greater Orlando Aviation Authority added an adjacent 3,000 acres to mitigate its airport expansion. In the years that followed, TNC restored 3,500 acres of wetlands, returning the landscape to its natural state. Nearly half of the Disney Wilderness Preserve is made up of longleaf pine
