Georgia Continues to Preserve Green

 

Georgia?EUR??,,????'???s present and previous governor have adopted programs to keep Georgia green.

When Roy Barnes was governor of Georgia (1998-2002) he promised to set aside $30 million each year he was in office to go toward Georgia Greenspace, his state program to buy private lands and make them public lands. Since 2000, Georgia cities and counties have used about $59 million of that program?EUR??,,????'???s money to buy more than 10,000 acres to preserve legacies of the state?EUR??,,????'???s landscapes, including wetlands, pastoral land in north Fulton County and land on which a trolley system ran that will be a walking trail.

The money ran out in 2003, when Gov. Sonny Perdue took office and budget shortfalls altered priorities. Gov. Perdue, however, has created the Georgia Land Conservation (GLC) program to encourage private property owners to keep their lands green instead of turning them over to developers. Under Perdue’s GLC program, all Georgia communities will be eligible to compete for about $100 million in grants and loans.