Landowner Assistance Program

Over half of Florida is privately owned. The land-use planning efforts and habitat management decisions made by private landowners today will determine the future for fish and wildlife tomorrow.

With over 700 animals on land and more than 1,250 freshwater and marine fish, Florida is literally teeming with wildlife. All are dependent on the highly productive, but delicate, natural systems of Florida, ranging from the tropical coral reefs of the Keys and the magnificent Everglades to the awe-inspiring array of springs and quiet beauty of the rolling sandhills.

Florida is also home to more than 17 million people, 1,250 golf courses, 370,000 hotel rooms and a gross state product of more than $490 billion. "At first glance, it would seem these two worlds would be incompatible, but the impressive thing about Florida is there is room for both humans and wildlife," says Ken Haddad, then-executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). Conserving habitats is the key to survival for people and a diverse array of living things.

FWC's Habitat Conservation Scientific Services section is a group of approximately 30 biologists who are available to provide wildlife-related assistance with land-use planning and habitat management. Landowners seeking assistance with habitat management will likely find it offered within FWC's Landowner Assistance Program (LAP).

There are many forms of assistance that include technical, financial, educational, and various forms of recognition that seek to award landowners who manage their habitat properly for wildlife. The goal of this website is to provide a "one-stop-shop" for landowner's needing habitat management assistance. We hope that some landowners will quickly find the resources they need from this website while others may learn how to receive additional assistance.

Here is a summary of tools offered in the Landowner Assistance Program. Apply for the Landowner Assistance Program.  More detailed information is available through the links to the left.