The Conservation Fund Acquires President Jimmy Carter’s Family Farm, Protecting the Place Where His Conservation Legacy Began

PLAINS, Georgia — The Conservation Fund announced today it has acquired President Jimmy Carter’s family farm, approximately 2,458 acres just outside Plains, Georgia, where he grew up and returned throughout his life. The project protects the land where the 39th president’s conservation ethic took root and will ultimately expand the state’s Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area to nearly 7,000 acres.

“Long before Jimmy Carter protected millions of acres across America, he was a boy working the fields and roaming the woods of southwest Georgia,” said Stacy Funderburke, vice president of the central Southeast region at The Conservation Fund. “This land shaped him and his legacy, and he never stopped coming home to it. We’re honored to help ensure this land remains healthy habitat for wildlife, and we look forward to the day it is open to everyone who wants to experience it.”

“For our family, this land was always about more than a farm. It was home — a place my grandparents treasured. We’re grateful to The Conservation Fund and to everyone working to make sure it’s protected for generations to come,” said Jason Carter, grandson of President Carter.

President Carter’s outdoor upbringing on this land helped shape one of the most consequential conservation records of any American president. He signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in December 1980, which protected more than 104 million acres and remains the largest expansion of protected public lands in United States 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.

Unlike the National Park Service’s Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home, which preserves the house where he lived as a child, the Carter family farmland was the larger working landscape where young Jimmy worked alongside his father, Earl, in the family’s peanut, corn and sugarcane operation, and explored the surrounding woods. He returned to the farmland property many times throughout his life to hunt, to walk in the woods with his beloved wife Rosalynn and, near the end of his life, to make one last fishing trip on the property’s pond. At his request, the family kept a stand of mature longleaf pine, and in one of his final land management decisions, much of the property was replanted with young longleaf pine, restoring the native forest that once covered the region.

That replanting makes the property a natural fit with the adjacent Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area, which The Conservation Fund helped Georgia establish in 2019 to protect longleaf pine habitat and the threatened gopher tortoise. The land is vital habitat for the tortoise, and this project furthers The Conservation Fund’s ongoing work in Georgia to keep the species from declining to endangered status. Creeks adjacent to the property are also home to rare freshwater mussels.

The Carter family farm is expected to open to the public for hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation as soon as 2027, even before The Conservation Fund transfers it to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2028. The land will then become part of the Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area.

About The Conservation Fund
The Conservation Fund protects the land that sustains us all. We are in the business of conservation, creating innovative solutions that drive nature-based action in all 50 states for climate protection, vibrant communities and sustainable economies. We apply effective strategies, efficient financing approaches, and enduring government, community and private partnerships to protect millions of acres of America’s natural land, cultural sites, recreation areas and working forests and farms. To learn more, visit www.conservationfund.org.