Georgia Farm That Shaped Jimmy Carter Protected for Wildlife and Recreation

The Conservation Fund has acquired the farm where President Jimmy Carter grew up exploring, approximately 2,458 acres just outside Plains, Georgia. The land will be added to the state’s Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area, expanding it to nearly 7,000 acres of protected habitat for rare wildlife and outdoor recreation opportunities. 

These fields and forests helped to shape one of America’s greatest conservation leaders. Now they will be protected for the wildlife that depends on them and for everyone who wants to experience them. 

How a Georgia Farm Shaped a Conservation President 

The Carter family farm is where Jimmy Carter first learned to love the land. His father, Earl Carter, grew peanuts, corn, and sugarcane here. Young Jimmy worked the fields and spent his free time exploring the surrounding woods. 

That connection lasted a lifetime and helped produce one of the most consequential conservation records of any American president. In 1980, he signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which protected more than 104 million acres. It remains the largest expansion of protected public lands in U.S. history. He also established 39 units of the National Park System, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Atlanta. 

Throughout his presidency and public life he returned to the farm to hunt, to walk the woods with his wife and, near the end of his life, to make one last fishing trip on the property’s pond. 

Why This Land Matters for Wildlife 

The Carter family farm provides vital habitat for the gopher tortoise, Georgia’s state reptile and a threatened species. These tortoises depend on open longleaf pine forests, and the burrows they dig shelter many other animals. Across the Southeast, development and the clearing of forests are shrinking that habitat, putting the gopher tortoise at risk of becoming federally endangered. The farm also supports deer, turkey, quail, and hundreds of other native plants and animals.