{"id":203063,"date":"2026-03-23T22:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203063\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T22:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:34:20","slug":"north-florida-land-trust-gets-sizable-property-donation-in-st-johns-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/203063\/","title":{"rendered":"North Florida Land Trust gets sizable property donation in St. Johns County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than 1,700 acres donated by Ring Power company will be conservation land in DeerCreek Plantation area.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The North Florida Land Trust (<a href=\"https:\/\/nflt.org\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">NFLT<\/a>) has acquired a notable chunk of property that will be made into a conservation area in St. Johns County.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ringpower.com\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Ring Power<\/a>, a Cat heavy equipment dealer in Florida, donated more than 1,700 acres in a conservation easement to the NFLT. The property is in western St. Johns County near the Shands Bridge that crosses the St. Johns River into Clay County.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The donation encompasses an area known as DeerCreek Plantation. It\u2019s adjacent to some areas of another preserved stretch of land, the <a href=\"https:\/\/floridapolitics.com\/archives\/697513-st-johns-county-sets-aside-2m-for-conservation-land-purchases\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Jack Wright Island Conservation Area<\/a>. The DeerCreek tract of land more than triples the mass of property at the Wright preserve.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Ring Power owners \u2014 Randy Ringhaver, Paula Ringhaver,\u00a0David Alban and Bree Alban\u00a0\u2014 facilitated the donation. The DeerCreek property lies within the NFLT springs, aquifer recharge and water quality improvement preservation priority area. It\u2019s also within the <a href=\"https:\/\/floridadep.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/FLDEP_DSL_OES_FF_2025_StJohnsRiverBlueway.pdf\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\">St. Johns River Blueway Florida Forever<\/a> area.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThis generous donation is a major win for conservation in St. Johns County, which just continues to grow,\u201d said Allison DeFoor, President and CEO of NFLT. \u201cWe are grateful to the Ringhaver family for recognizing the importance of saving this natural space because it is now or never.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jimforcongress.com\/\" data-wpel-link=\"external\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-756307\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/JS-728x90-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"729\" height=\"91\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">St. Johns County is one of the fastest-growing counties in Florida. Multiple housing developments have been erected in St. Johns County near the DeerCreek tract in the past two decades.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Randy Ringhaver said his family bought several tracts of the remaining wilderness beyond the easement they are donating to stave off the rush of development.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cA close friend once said some things are worth more than they can be sold for and that is exactly how we feel about DeerCreek,\u201d said Randy Ringhaver, whose family will still have access to the property to organize quail hunting outings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The NFLT was founded in 1999 as a nonprofit environmental and land conservation organization. It has been productive in the past year in terms of land acquisitions, adding thousands of acres to what\u2019s called the Ocala to Osceola (<a href=\"https:\/\/nflt.org\/ocala-to-osceola-wildlife-corridor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"external noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">O2O<\/a>) wildlife corridor and the Florida Wildlife Corridor, which run through several counties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,700 acres donated by Ring Power company will be conservation land in DeerCreek Plantation area. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[42853,93433,93434,28,30,29,93435,42857,42858,93436,93437,31039,5902,93438],"class_list":["post-203063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-allison-defoor","tag-david-and-bree-alban","tag-deercreek-plantation","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-jack-wright-island-conservation-area","tag-nflt","tag-north-florida-land-trust","tag-randy-and-paula-ringhaver","tag-ring-power","tag-shands-bridge","tag-st-johns-county","tag-st-johns-river-blueway-florida-forever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}