We thank Citrus County for meeting arrangements at the Lecanto Government Building

The meeting started promptly at 10.00 am with a full quorum, see participant list following. Decision/recommendation items in bold italics.

10.00 am Opening and introductions . Representatives. proxies or alternates were present for all the stakeholder groups (see list of participants) and the draft agenda was reviewed and approved.

Announcement of public workshop to review and discuss substantive issues associated with the Gopher Tortoise Management Plan.

DATE AND TIME: May 24, 2007; 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
PLACE: Paramount Plaza Hotel and Conference Center, 2900 SW 13^th Street, Gainesville, Florida 32608.

The group requested that the stakeholders meeting 25 May also be held in the Gainesville area- facilitator to arrange.

Management Plan Process dates. The following steps and dates were announced:

• 4 April- close 1^st Public comment period
• 2 May FWC staff submit revised Draft plan
• 7 May Draft plan (rev) becomes public as an agenda item for the 13 June FWC Commissioners Meeting- see FWC website http://myfwc.com/commission/index.html meeting agendas, documents

2^nd Public comment opens (Note FWC will receive comments but will not be revising the draft plan between May 7 and the June 13 Commissioners meeting.)

• 24 May Public Workshop on the plan Gainesville 6pm-9pm

• 13 June Commissioners Meeting,
  • Radisson Suite Hotel Oceanfront, 3101 North Highway A1A, Melbourne, FL 32903. Phone: 321-773-9260
• 14 June 2^nd public comment period closes.
• 15 June- 30 July (approx) revisions as directed
• 30 July (approx) revised Draft Plan (3) submitted to Commission meeting agenda.

Again available for public scrutiny and comment.

• September 12-14 Commission meeting
  • Hilton Hotel, 333 First Street, South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701. Phone: 727-894-5000

1) Review of Recipient sites identified. (2000 acre challenge)

Preliminary information and contacts were presented indicating more than 4,000 acres of potential recipient sites that might be made available to receive tortoises in the Interim IT process. However, formal confirmation of these sites by the owners was not in hand and is required before FWC can list them as requested by stakeholders. The group recommended that FWC further clarify the language and intent of the draft sign-up form and also provide a summary document outlining the process and consequences to landowners of making this indication of interest. Counties may require Commission authority to make this commitment, but provisional interest authorized by a competent county authority (e.g. land manager or environmental program manager) would be valuable. The list of potential sites needs to accompany submission of the proposed policy 13 June to the FWC commissioners.

Group discussed the use of safe harbor agreements to protect recipient site owners from future jeopardy as a consequence of receiving tortoises, but the details and legalities of such agreements are complex and cannot be resolved quickly. These are deferred to implementation of the management plan.

The inclusion of additional State owned lands and specifically FWC owned lands was suggested by some participants.

2) Presentation of the policy and comments received. Greg Holder presented and explained the draft policy and outlined comments received. Key issues were:

• Due process and concerns from several, how people will be noticed
• Adequate time for people to be noticed
• Concerns pro and con about grandfathering current and pending IT Permits
• Concerns about implementation date. Earlier- later in the range 27 April- 30 September.
• Clarify and reiterate current policy on voluntary surrender of IT permits.
• Require appropriate habitat (FWC will evaluate and direct, but not require)
• Require enclosure, possibly only for smaller sites.
• Apply expiry dates to interim permits (range 1- 5 years or none) possibly with periodic renewal option for long term projects.
• Time period to process and issue permits must be shortened from current 3-6 months. FWC should address process and staffing needs to enable this.

FWC staff undertook to consider these issues. The draft policy must be finalized 4 May for public announcement 7 May as part of the June Commission meeting agenda and can be reviewed at that time at the FWC website- Commission agenda.

Review and preliminary response to public comments received on the Draft Management Plan.

FWC received 2066 comments. These were recorded to a database, tracked by source and content relative to the draft plan, assigned to staff to analyze and respond, and revisions to the draft plan are in preparation. A list of over 90 significant topics and specific suggestions was assembled from all comments submitted. On behalf of FWC staff the facilitator presented three lists of major topics by the form of FWC staff initial response:

Fifty three topics were immediately accepted and introduced into the revised plan. A large portion of these concerned adjustments to the permit process.

Major revisions were made in the sections covering Objectives, Rule requirements, Permit cost structure, Local government coordination and implementation of the plan.

Twenty eight topics were carefully considered but determined to be impracticable, requiring additional time to address details or not compatible with the plans goals and will not be included in the current revision.

Discussion followed on the following points:

• Further revision of the policy on agricultural and forestry practice to address significantly changed land use affecting tortoises.
• Increased fines for violations.
• The proposed permit process for small sites. A sub-group of stakeholder interests were invited to submit an alternative to the FWC proposal on this topic.
• Allocation of fees and conservation contributions to effective tortoise management and conservation.
• Realistic reappraisal of land acquisition and habitat management goals.

Keith Fountain, director of land acquisition for TNC provided information on the recent and likely future State land acquisition situation and suggested that public monies for land acquisition may be restricted in the immediate future. Recent land purchase covering 46,000 acres and costing $270 million indicate an average purchase price of $5,900/acre for conservation land but this is widely variable and much higher in some areas. The stated plan goal of 25,000 acres/year of gopher habitat would therefore cost approximately $150-$200 million. Current sources including Florida Forever, County acquisitions, TNC and DEP are currently fully committed through 2010. Renewal of a State land purchase program is planned but not confirmed. Only about 1/3 of Fl. Forever was available for actual purchase, the remainder being assigned to other needs. The goal for land acquisition should be re-evaluated for feasibility with more informed and sophisticated projections taken into account.

The group conducted extensive discussion on how the goal of improved habitat management on public lands could be refined. The group suggested FWC include a detailed cost analysis of public land management costs, primarily prescribed fire and vegetation management. This per/acre cost could then be divided by the expected number of tortoises going through the permit system to provide a base figure for revenue needs to meet management costs. Information is available on area of upland habitat in protected ownership (FNAI), land management costs (TNC and state agencies) but requires some time to access and compile.

The group recognized that the detailed proposed revisions to land management costs and small site permits could not be included by the deadline of 2 May, but could be submitted in the public comment period 7 May- 14 June. An ad-hoc stakeholder team comprising Walt Thomson, Conservation (TNC), Chris Becker Public managers (DEP-Parks) and Steve Godley (Fl. Homeowners Assoc.) agreed to address the habitat management cost analysis. A second group headed by Ray Ashton Public (GTCI) would consider the small site permit issue. The drafts from these ad-hoc working groups will be circulated to the group prior to 25 May for discussion at the 25 May meeting.

Next meeting 25 May 2007 - Arrangements will be made to hold the next meeting in Gainesville. Either at the Florida Farm Bureau Federation, 5700 SW 34th Street, Gainesville, FL or 34^th Department Agriculture Auditorium.

Steering Committee of the Florida gopher tortoise stakeholders group

Primary Industry : M. Ann Gosa (Florida Farm Bureau); Cheryl George (For J. McGlincy Forestry Assoc.), Conservation organizations: Boyd Blihovde (Gopher tortoise council), Laurie Macdonald (Defenders of Wildlife), alternate- Walt Thompson (TNC); Land Development: D. Rillstone (Fl Chamber Commerce), S. Godley (Homebuilders assoc.); Government Agencies: B. Burgeson (Collier Co.), B. Kaiser (Hillsborough Co.), alternate- Susan Farnsworth (Citrus Co); Research and Academic: M. Aresco; Commercial Service (consultants): M. Palmer, alternate R. Clementi; Private land owners: Meg Nelson (Nokuse Plantation); Military, federal or state land managers: Skip Griep (US Forest Service), alternate Chris Becker (Fl State Parks DEP); General Public: R. Eagan, R. Ashton (GTCI); Animal Welfare. J. Hobgood (HSUS), Ilke Daniel

Staff, FWC

Public