The Florida Natural Areas Inventory provides scientific support to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for Florida Forever, the state's environmental land acquisition program. FNAI contributes in two key ways: scientific review of newly proposed land acquisition projects, and comprehensive natural resource analysis and scoring of all Florida Forever projects using the Conservation Needs Assessment and F-TRAC.

For each Florida Forever proposal review cycle, FNAI scientists contribute to a multi-phase evaluation process.

Preliminary Evaluation Report - Nov 2023 (24 MB pdf)

FNAI reviews new proposal applications and prepares a Preliminary Evaluation Report in advance of the first vote of the Acquisition and Restoration Council (ARC).

For those proposals voted upon for further evaluation, FNAI staff scientists conduct field assessments. Field assessments help ensure that FNAI data reflect current local site conditions, and also give the applicant an opportunity to share additional information. Staff summaries from each assessment are incorporated into a multi-agency evaluation report compiled by DEP, Office of Environmental Services. DEP's evaluation report is presented to the ARC prior to the final vote and project ranking for each cycle.

FNAI conducts Florida Forever project analysis and scoring across a wide range of natural resource priorities found in the Florida Forever Conservation Needs Assessment (FFCNA):

Project Comparative Analysis Table - November 2023 (535 KB pdf) | Excel Version (64 KB) This table, formerly known as the "bubble sheet", provides concise summary resource scores for all current and proposed Florida Forever projects. Also available are sortable Excel worksheets for the supporting data underlying the Comparative Analysis. Resource Evaluation Scoring Worksheets - November 2023 (257 KB)

Natural Resource Acquisition Progress Report - November 2023 (476 KB pdf) This report tracks acres acquired of each natural resource layer included in the Conservation Needs Assessment, tied directly to measures outlined in the Florida Forever legislation.

All reports listed below are updated approximately once a year to reflect current data and project status.

Documentation for the statewide natural resource conservation data layers tied directly to measures outlined in the Florida Forever legislation.

Conservation Needs Assessment Technical Report, Version 5.2 - June 2024 (11.8 MB pdf)
This report provides detailed technical documentation of all Needs Assessment data, and is revised frequently as the data are updated.

Conservation Needs Assessment Summary Report - December 2000 (5 MB pdf)
This report summarized the original Conservation Needs Assessment. NOTE: most figures and maps in this report are obsolete.

The original Conservation Needs Assessment data layers have been combined into functional groupings for analysis. These groupings and related analyses are known as the Ranking Support Analyses (RSA).

RSA Report December 2022 (5.8 MB pdf)

The RSA informs two primary evaluations for Florida Forever Projects:

• Single Resource Evaluation (SRE) - projects are scored relative to each single natural resource (e.g. species habitat, surface water, etc.).
• Florida Forever Tool for Efficient Resource Acquisition and Conservation (F-TRAC) - projects are scored across all natural resources by comparison with an optimal portfolio of conservation sites.

Detailed methodology for the RSA, including SRE and F-TRAC analyses, is provided in the RSA report. Project scores resulting from the SRE and F-TRAC analyses are reflected in the Florida Forever Project Comparative Analysis Table linked above.