Apalachicola National Forest, in photos

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On March 31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it will reorganize the U.S. Forest Service. As part of that reorganization, Forest Service headquarters will move from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City, Utah. Additionally, it is closing over 50 Research & Development facilities, including one here in Tallahassee. Florida will now be managed as part of a multi-state region headquartered in Auburn, Alabama.

The USDA touts the move as a “common-sense approach to improve mission delivery.” Critics see it as a dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service, and fear that it will endanger over a hundred million of acres of public lands. Of particular concern is that many of these research centers coordinate wildfire response and prevention.

The USDA is also prioritizing timber production: “This includes supporting our timber growers across the country, including those in the Southeast by prioritizing a regional office and promoting policies that boost timber production, lowering costs for consumers.”

The U.S. Forest Service oversees three national forests in Florida. The largest is the Apalachicola National Forest, which occupies 635,019 acres between Tallahassee and the Apalachicola River. With this reprioritization, the ANF is losing its closest research center and faces the prospect of increased logging.

The Mission of the U.S. Forest Service

I’ve added this section after reading some of the numerous comments on our Facebook post about U.S. Forest Service changes. National Forests are under the Department of Agriculture, and not the Department of the Interior, like National Parks or National Wildlife Refuges. As the USFS web site states, “National Forests Are Working Forests.”

Timber production has always been a goal for these lands. But so, also, is environmental stewardship. These goals might seem at odds to some.

The central idea is that healthy forests provide timber production as well as ecosystem services. The first bullet point on the USFS “What We Believe” page is:

Advocating a conservation ethic in promoting the health, productivity, diversity, and beauty of forests and associated lands.

U.S. Forest Service

One way to balance its economic and environmental goals is to thin overstocked forests. A lot of land in the ANF, for instance, was previously pine plantation land. There is a denser tree canopy than one would find in an undisturbed longleaf pine/ wiregrass ecosystem, and oftentimes, longleaf was replaced with slash or loblolly pine.

Tree removal can be a step towards restoring the landscape. But, how will this now be carried out with a push for increased production? And, how will the process be managed under the new structure?

The many landscapes of the Apalachicola National Forest

Over the years, the WFSU Ecology Blog has explored many of the habitats within the National Forest. Longleaf pine/ wiregrass is the dominant ecosystem type, but, like I just said, it has been replaced with slash and loblolly pine in places.

The Apalachicola National Forest is a varied landscape. We’ve kayaked tupelo swamps, tiptoed through pitcher plant bogs, released striped newts into ephemeral wetlands, and waded through the Bradwell Bay Wilderness.

The following is a visual tour of these adventures, taken from over a decade of stories. With over half-a-million acres, there’s always more to see. But this should give you a sense of the diversity within the Apalachicola National Forest.

Just south of Tallahassee, the Munson Sandhills lie along an ancient coastline called the Cody Escarpment. This is where the Red Hills transition to the flatter Woodville Karst Plain. Sandhills are ancient beach dunes, and the soil is, essentially, beach sand.

Wildlife in the Munson Sandhills

I come here often for work and play, and I’ve seen quite a lot of wildlife here over the years. I didn’t include insects in this section; they’ll get their own section further down.

Ephemeral wetlands

Since 2016, we’ve covered efforts by the Coastal Plains Institute and its partners to release striped newts into ephemeral wetlands. The water level in these wetlands rise and fall with the fullness of the water table. This means some wetlands go dry for years, while at other times they overflow and connect to each other.

During extreme droughts in the 1990s, striped newts all but disappeared from the Apalachicola National Forest. CPI releases dozens of newts a year into these wetlands, and evidence shows that they have been reproducing. When releasing newts, CPI checks the drift fence traps around the wetlands, which lets us see the diverse animals that make use of this habitat.

Prescribed Fire: cycles of destruction and renewal

Here is a place where we’ve been able to see how a longleaf/ wiregrass ecosystem responds to fire.

The images above are from burns in 2023 and 2024. Within two months of a fire, the ground cover will have largely regrown. This ecosystem evolved with almost yearly wildfires, which create an open canopy and an understory full of grasses and wildflowers.

When ephemeral wetlands are dry, fires burn through them. This is a part of their cycle. Fire keeps the wetlands open and grassy, which makes them suitable for the amphibians that inhabit them.

Wildflowers and rare pollinators

In 2019, we started following citizen science efforts to monitor frosted elfin butterflies. The Munson Sandhills population is the only population considered healthy in a range that spans the eastern United States. It has disappeared from much of its historic range.

Since then, I’ve started finding rare bees here, and a few species of concern, like American and southern plains bumblebees. Below are some of the rare pollinators, and some that I just find cool, and some of the wildflowers that keep them fed.

I produced a piece here on Melissodes mitchelli, a rare bee specializing in prickly pear flowers. In a sandhill just south of Tallahassee International Airport, we found a population of rare sandhills cellophane bees, which need large open sandy areas near cypress wetlands (pictured below).

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From the arid sandhills south of Tallahassee, we cross into some wetter environments in Liberty County. Let’s start with what this section of the Apalachicola National Forest is most famous for: carnivorous plants.

Carnivorous Plants

Pitcher plant bogs are found in and around mesic flatwoods, another variation of the longleaf/ wiregrass ecosystem. Fires still burn here, but at times, water pools on the ground. This alternating cycle of wet and dry is ideal for carnivorous plants. We produced stories on these habitats in 2014 and 2022 (which was updated in 2024).

A different kind of ephemeral wetland, with a different salamander

Ephemeral wetlands south of Sumatra are different than those in the Munson Sandhills. For one thing, they are forested cypress wetlands. They are not tied to the water table, and had typically had wet and dry cycles tied to seasons, not climate. And yet, they have been similarly affected by drought, as are their most vulnerable residents: frosted flatwoods salamanders.

The wetlands are forested but, like their counterparts in the Munson Sandhills, they rely on fire to keep their understories open and grassy.

Owl Creek

Not far from one of the pitcher plant bogs pictured above is Owl Creek. Owl Creek is a large tupelo/ cypress swamp that feeds into the Apalachicola River. Other Apalachicola National Forest locations along the river are historic sites: Fort Gadsden and Bloody Bluff. Over the years, we have gotten to know Owl Creek well on RiverTrek and on other adventures with Apalachicola Riverkeeper.

Ochlockonee River

South of Lake Talquin, much of the Ochlockonee River runs through the Apalachicola National Forest. Here are a few images from a Tall Timbers bio-blitz, staged from a sand bar on the Liberty County side.

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The Bradwell Bay Wilderness

Here, the Florida National Scenic Trail runs through Monkey Creek Swamp. This is an old growth swamp, and a headwaters of the Sopchoppy River. Bradwell Bay is one of two Wilderness Areas within the Apalachicola National Forest. These areas are more protected than the rest of the forest. Motorized and mechanical equipment is forbidden here, from cars to chainsaws to bicycles. The idea is that here, people can feel nature fully.

A few years ago, Project Remote calculated that a point within Bradwell Bay was the most remote spot in north Florida. Their criteria was distance from roads or other human structures. This has also been home to southern dusky salamanders, which have been disappearing throughout their range.

During the wet season, hikers on this section of the Florida Trail might wade in waist-deep water, and it can be a challenge to stay on the trail.

The Sopchoppy River

The Florida Trail also runs along the Sopchoppy River. It’s a scenic view, especially in the fall.