From family farm to wildlife area

The Conservation Fund, a group dedicated to permanently protecting south-west Georgia land, said on Monday it has acquired the family farm of Jimmy Carter outside Plains, Georgia. The property covers about 2,458 acres (995 hectares) and is meant to welcome the public for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation as soon as 2027.

The next steps for the Jimmy Carter Georgia farm are already set:

• •The Conservation Fund will transfer the land to Georgia's natural resources department in 2028
• •The farm is planned to become part of the Lanahassee Creek wildlife management area
• •That addition would expand the wildlife management area to nearly 7,000 acres (2,833 hectares)

Carter's conservation record

Carter served as US president for four years beginning in 1977 and later won a Nobel peace prize for his humanitarian work. In late 1980 he signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting more than 104m acres in what remains, according to the Conservation Fund, the largest protected public lands expansion in US history. He also established 39 national park system units, among them the Martin Luther King Jr national historic site and the Chattahoochee River national recreation area in Atlanta.

The land that shaped him

The Carter family bought the land in the early 1900s, and as a boy Carter worked it alongside his father, Earl, in peanut, corn and sugarcane growing operations. He kept returning throughout his life to hunt, walk with his late wife Rosalynn and fish in the property's pond.

In one of his final conservation decisions, Carter asked his family to preserve a stand of mature longleaf pine and had much of the farm replanted with young longleaf pine, part of an effort to restore the native forest that once covered the region. That longleaf pine restoration creates vital habitat for tortoises that conservationists work to keep off the endangered species list, and creeks adjacent to the farm are also home to rare freshwater mussels.

Stacy Funderburke, vice-president of the Conservation Fund's central south-east region, tied the acquisition to Carter's early years: "Long before Jimmy Carter protected millions of acres across America, he was a boy working the fields and roaming the woods of southwest Georgia."

Jason Carter, the former president's grandson, said in a statement: "For our family, this land was always about more than a farm. It was home – a place my grandparents treasured."

Not the boyhood home

The Conservation Fund noted that the farm is distinct from Carter's boyhood home, which the US national park service maintains. Carter died aged 100 in December 2024, a little over a year after his wife Rosalynn. The property is set to pass to Georgia's natural resources department in 2028, with public access planned as soon as 2027.