Face Of This Place
Matt Sexton on the Loxahatchee River watershed
Most often we find that childhood experiences guide us toward our passions and, ultimately, our careers. Do you have a specific memory that has shaped your personal relationship with nature?
One of my favorite things to do growing up in Ohio was to go to the South Chagrin Reservation on the east side of Cleveland. The Reservation is one of Cleveland’s many Metroparks, which form an Emerald Necklace of preserves that ring the City. I would hike the trails through the woods, climb the cliffs, and play in the river. When I was old enough, I would head to the Reservation every weekend I could to go on long bike rides in the summer or cross country skiing in the winter. After I left Cleveland for college, I still found myself going to the Metroparks whenever I came home for breaks. It was incredibly rewarding and a full-circle moment for me when I had the opportunity with The Conservation Fund a few years ago to help add Acacia Reservation, Cleveland’s newest Metropark, to the Metropark system.
How did you find yourself at The Conservation Fund?
I started with The Conservation Fund (the Fund) when I was at Chapel Hill working on my Master’s in Public Policy. I was required to do a rural economic development project for one of my courses and I heard about an eco-tourism project that the Fund was doing in eastern North Carolina. I contacted Mikki Sager (current Vice President and Director of Resourceful Communities) at the Fund’s North Carolina office and she put me to work in Tyrrell County, one of the poorest counties in the state, to help create job opportunities tied to a conservation project that the Fund had recently completed.
That turned into an internship, which turned into a Master’s thesis, and then a full-time job opportunity in Florida. I began working with some of our staff in Florida’s northern Palm Beach County and southern Martin County. I grew in that role and then began to expand our Florida conservation business. Now, 20+ years later, I lead our southeast conservation acquisitions team and I help lead our national conservation acquisition business.
Did you always think you would have a career in conservation?
I am not sure that it was ever a choice—I didn’t consciously pursue a career in conservation. I simply pursued what I enjoyed and found to be the most interesting. I was fortunate that my interests and passions connected me with a job I loved. When I was in school, I was struck by how the idea of conservation and economic development were viewed as contradictory. To me, they were complementary, and I had a hard time understanding how anyone could see it differently. So, when I learned about this group called The Conservation Fund that was doing economic development centered around land protection projects, I called them. It really was a perfect fit, and here I am today.
Protecting the Loxahatchee River watershed was one of the first projects you worked on in Florida; can you tell me more about it?
When I first moved to Florida to continue my work with The Conservation Fund, I began working on the Loxahatchee Greenways project. At the time, the Loxahatchee River was Florida’s only federally designated Wild and Scenic River, and planning for the restoration and preservation of the watershed was critically important. The Fund began working with approximately 10 different entities and each one had an isolated role in the protection of the watershed. The project successfully brought the multiple entities together for the first time, and collectively, we came up with an integrated plan for the future of the Loxahatchee watershed.
Northern Palm Beach County and southern Martin County were on the edge of development and there existed an opportunity to plan for the coming development in a way that protected the most important natural systems in the watershed. Working in our favor was the fact that much of the undeveloped land was owned by one owner, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the State, County and Water Management District all had funding to buy land for conservation.
What else makes the Loxahatchee Greenways project so unique?
In one of the first instances of using geographic information system (GIS) modeling for landscape level planning, the Loxahatchee Greenways project provided a road map for future growth. It allowed us to identify for conservation the core natural areas and the connections between them. The conservation agencies purchasing and managing natural lands prioritized their efforts according to our GIS plan. Moreover, the ecosystems that sustain the Loxahatchee River watershed are still in place today. Those ecosystems provide abundant habitat for wildlife, including the sandhill crane, peregrine falcon and manatee, and increased recreational opportunities for people.
The same GIS model that we developed for the Loxahatchee was adopted at the State level to help guide conservation throughout the rest of Florida. Our work here served as a springboard for our Strategic Conservation Planning services around the country—The Conservation Fund has gone on to use GIS modeling in numerous cities, like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Nashville, and Milwaukee, in more recent years.
The Loxahatchee Greenways project helped protect a system of natural areas in Florida, just as the Cleveland Metroparks, which I enjoyed so much as a kid, have done for the greater Cleveland area. It’s an honor to have been involved.
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Loxahatchee RiverOur work in Florida
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