Nokuse Plantation

File:Pinus palustris UGA1.jpg

Nokuse Plantation is a privately owned nature preserve in northwest Florida's Walton County. It consists of approximately {{convert|54000|acres|km2}} and is the largest privately owned nature preserve in the Southeastern United States.{{cite web |author=Block, Melissa |date=June 17, 2015 |title=Gambler-Turned-Conservationist Devotes Fortune To Florida Nature Preserve |url=https://www.npr.org/2015/06/17/415226300/gambler-turned-conservationist-devotes-fortune-to-florida-nature-preserve? |accessdate=July 31, 2015 |work=NPR}} Founded in 2000, it is funded by timber and oil commodities trader Marion Clifton Davis and his wife, Stella Davis.{{cite web|url=http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/florida/newsroom/florida-conservancy-honors-mc-and-stella-davis.xml|title=The Nature Conservancy Honors M.C. and Stella Davis|date=March 9, 2015|publisher=Nature.org|accessdate=July 31, 2015}} Its name, Nokuse, is the Native American word for black bear in the Muscogee language, an umbrella species on the preserve. The reserve serves as a haven for the locally threatened gopher tortoise, an inhabitant of longleaf pine forests. Tortoises recovered from local urbanised areas have been released into the reserve.

Land in the "Northwest Florida Greenway area" was chosen because of the availability of large tracts and because the Florida Panhandle was one of six designated biologically hyperdiverse hotspots in the United States.{{cite web|title=Getting Back into the Woods at Nokuse Plantation|author=Ritchie, Bruce |url=http://www.landscope.org/article/FL/nokuse/1/|publisher=LandScope America|accessdate=July 31, 2015}} The majority of property was purchased for $90 million from timber companies and was planted with eight million seedlings to restore it to the kind of pine woodland that had been deforested by the early twentieth century{{cite web|title=Why did this businessman buy 53,000 acres in Florida?|author=Breyer, Melissa |date=June 18, 2015|publisher=Treehugger.com|url=http://www.treehugger.com/conservation/why-did-businessman-buy-54000-acres-florida.html|accessdate=July 31, 2015}} A wildlife underpass connects Nokuse with Eglin Air Force Base which contains a remnant of longleaf pine forest, with some 500-year-old trees.{{cite web|url=http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/01/bombing-range-is-national-example-for-wildlife-conservation/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150406144742/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/01/bombing-range-is-national-example-for-wildlife-conservation/|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 6, 2015|title=Bombing Range Is National Example for Wildlife Conservation|last=Ward Jr.|first=Carlton|date=April 1, 2015|work=National Geographic |publisher=National Geographic Society|accessdate=August 1, 2015}}

Nokuse includes a {{convert|28000|sqft|adj=on}}, $12 million nature discovery center named for the evolutionary biologist, E.O. Wilson.{{cite web|url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set-aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/?no-ist|title=Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?|author=Hiss, Tony|work=Smithsonian|date = September 2014|accessdate=July 31, 2015}}