The strip-mall geometry eventually starts to thin as you drive west out of Orlando along State Road 429, past the outlet stores and the unfinished subdivisions with their hopeful Spanish-tile rooftops. The land becomes accessible. Palmetto thickets, pine flatwoods, and the occasional sandhill crane prowling through a drainage ditch. Here, Orange County recently used a sizable portion of a $100 million conservation program to do something that is practically unheard of in Central Florida: leave the ground alone on a 355-acre stretch of environmentally sensitive land.
It sounds easy. It isn’t. Anyone who has observed Orlando’s growth over the last 20 years is aware that asphalt is the region’s default setting. Where wetlands once drained, cul-de-sacs appear. In an area more used to ribbon-cutting for theme park expansions, the county’s announcement that it had bought the land to keep it permanently free from development was met with silence, almost shyness. It seems that officials were unsure of how to describe the lack of construction as a success.
But for years, the science underlying these choices has been solidifying. According to the EcoHealth Network, which was established in 2017 by ecologists and public health experts, ecological restoration is no longer just about preserving attractive trees. The argument is one of public health. One of the founders, Laura Orlando, has stated unequivocally that biodiversity—or its absence—is a threat to human health. In areas like Orange County, where growth has traditionally been the only metric that mattered, that framing has been slow to permeate city planning rooms.
The Orlando project’s scale is not what makes it intriguing. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan to the south, where Florida is currently constructing a reservoir larger than Manhattan and Staten Island combined and capable of holding 78 billion gallons of water—enough to fill 118,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools—dwarfs it. That is the multi-billion-dollar engineering marvel that made headlines. In contrast, the Orlando purchase is tiny and practically domestic. However, it might prove to be the more reproducible model. A reservoir the size of Manhattan will never be built in most cities. Theoretically, most cities can choose not to pave a few hundred acres.
It was difficult to ignore how unremarkable the land appears when standing at the edge of the parcel on an afternoon when the heat was oppressive over the saw palmettos. No welcome sign is present. No trail of interpretation, at least not yet. There was only a fence, a few faded survey markers, and the constant metallic sound of insects chirping. Early on, restoration is largely undetectable. The plants carry out their tasks. The microbes in the soil do their own. For once, people are asked to take a back seat.
Opponents will argue that the project is too small to be significant. They’re right. Mathematically speaking, 355 acres is a rounding error given the size of Central Florida’s sprawl. Furthermore, the larger Everglades project has demonstrated how brittle these victories can be, as the restoration plan was initially approved by Congress in 2000 and is still only partially implemented twenty-six years later. Appetite for politics fluctuates. Money is misdirected. Algal blooms come back. The task is never fully completed.
However, if you’re observing this from a distance, something might be changing. Even though the math of short-term development would suggest otherwise, Orange County’s purchase is part of a small but growing trend of cities opting for preservation over permits. It’s still unclear if this amounts to a true recovery or merely a holding action against the bulldozers. Finally, though, someone is prepared to give it a shot.
