Jimmy Carter’s family farm has been acquired by a group dedicated to permanently protecting the south-west Georgia land where the late former president’s conservation ethic took hold, officials announced on Monday.
A statement from the Conservation Fund said it plans to open Carter’s family farm – on about ۲,۴۵۸ acres (۹۹۵ hectares) outside his home town of Plains, Georgia – to the public for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation as soon as ۲۰۲۷, with the group set to transfer the land to the state’s natural resources department in ۲۰۲۸.
Plans call for the Carter family farm to ultimately become part of Georgia’s Lanahassee Creek wildlife management area, expanding it to nearly ۷,۰۰۰ acres (۲,۸۳۳ hectares), according to the Conservation Fund.
The non-profit organization also said its purchase of the Carter family farm ensures the protection of a property that was dear to the man who served as US president for four years beginning in ۱۹۷۷ – and later won a Nobel peace prize for his humanitarian work.
After being raised on his family’s farm, Carter signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in late ۱۹۸۰, protecting more than ۱۰۴m acres in what remains the US’s largest protected public lands expansion in US history, the Conservation Fund said.
He also established ۳۹ national park system units, among them the Martin Luther King Jr national historic site and the Chattahoochee River national recreation area in Georgia’s capital city, Atlanta.
The Conservation Fund traced a direct link between those accomplishments and Carter’s upbringing on the farm where he worked alongside his father, Earl, in their family’s peanut, corn and sugarcane growing operations. He also explored the surrounding woods and returned to the land that the Carter family bought in the early ۱۹۰۰s throughout his life – to hunt; walk with his late wife, Rosalynn; and fish in the property’s pond, including toward the end of the couple’s lives.
Carter successfully requested that his family maintain a stand of mature longleaf pine trees, according to the Conservation Fund. And in one of his final land conservation decisions, the group said, Carter had much of the farm replanted with young longleaf pine.
That move aimed to help restore the native forest once covering the region, a vital habit for tortoises, which conservationists have been working to keep from becoming an endangered species. Creeks adjacent to the Carter family farm are also home to freshwater mussels, which are rare.
“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 a statement attributed to Stacy Funderburke, vice-president of the Conservation Fund’s central south-east region. “This land shaped him and his legacy, and he never stopped coming home to it.
“We’re honored to help ensure this land remains a healthy habitat for wildlife, and we look forward to the day it is open to everyone who wants to experience it.”
The former president’s grandson, Jason, said in a separate statement: “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.”
A former governor of Georgia, Carter – a Democrat – defeated incumbent Republican president Gerald Ford to clinch his lone Oval Office term. He then lost the presidency to Republican challenger Ronald Reagan during the ۱۹۸۰ election amid the Iran hostage crisis.
After his presidency, Carter won the ۲۰۰۲ Nobel peace prize for his work seeking peaceful resolutions to global conflicts, advancing human rights and democracy, and promoting economic and social development.
The devout Baptist died aged ۱۰۰ in December ۲۰۲۴, a little more than a year after the death of Rosalynn Carter, his wife.
