Last year, towering oaks draped in Spanish moss shaded a stretch of Southwest Archer Road neighboring SW 50th Street.
Then heavy equipment rolled in, and within days exposed soil and construction fencing replaced at least 34 oak trees.
Near-treeless sites like this have become familiar to Gainesville residents like Eben Broadbent, an associate professor of forest ecology and geomatics at the University of Florida.
Broadbent has studied canopy loss in Alachua County for almost a decade and tracks his findings on Alachua Wild, a website he created.
One tool on the website is a zero-day prediction, which estimates the dates when non-protected oak forests will disappear from Alachua County, Gainesville and other area towns.
According to Alachua Wild’s calculations — based on satellite imagery and yearly tree loss data — those dates may arrive sooner than some expect.
Alachua Wild’s analysis shows:
- Alachua County has lost about 5% of its non-protected oak forests — trees not in protected areas such as Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park — since 2017. That’s about 585 acres annually. If deforestation continues at its current rate, the county could lose all of its oak forests by the year 2324.
- Gainesville lost 8% since 2017. The city could lose these oak forests by 2126 — 100 years from now.
- Newberry, which has had the biggest losses in recent years, has the closest zero year at 2103
Alachua Wild data show the losses aren’t limited to residential neighborhoods or busy corridors like Southwest Archer Road. Rather, they extend into forested areas throughout the county.
“The implications are an irreversible loss of an iconic and majestic biological cultural component of Alachua life,” Broadbent said. “You're not going to get another grove of 200-plus-year-old trees easily.”
But officials say they must balance tree conservation with local policies and state laws that protect private property rights and limit how much governments can restrict development.
Mary Alford, an Alachua County commissioner, described the challenge as a “balancing act.”
She said the zero-day estimates are concerning but noted the county’s ability to respond is limited. While some developers make efforts to preserve tree canopy, she said, others — particularly those from outside the county — clear-cut sites before construction.
“We can't tell them, they can't cut down the trees, we can only fine them,” Alford said. “I don't know how to fix that, because we can't criminalize the cutting down of trees.”
Deforestation on Southwest Archer Road
A for sale sign outside the Southwest Archer Road site told Broadbent what would come next. So, last year he began documenting the grove’s final days, snapping photos over time as it shifted from standing oaks to construction trucks to an empty dirt lot.
It was a scene he watched time and again around Alachua County
“This is a good example of the new development approach,” said Broadbent of the Southwest Archer Road site. “Cleared to the dirt.”
And it’s a reason the city could be without non-protected oak forests in just a generation or two.
Before construction, the site was one of the significant pockets of Gainesville’s large trees — the same pockets of forest now at risk of disappearing.
Its canopy of live oaks remained for centuries — until clearing began late last year, transforming the tangle into the beginnings of a medical office.
Because of Gainesville’s tree-save policies, clearing the grove was not cheap for its contractor, Precise Constructions Inc.
When developers remove trees greater than 8 inches in diameter, city rules require mitigation — either planting replacement trees or paying into a fund used to plant or preserve trees elsewhere in Gainesville.
Precise Constructions paid the City of Gainesville more than $800,000 to remove the trees in the lot located on Southwest Archer Road near SW 50th Street, according to tree removal permits obtained by WUFT.
One tree alone cost developers nearly $90,000 to remove.
Jake Johnson, an assistant project manager with Precise Constructions, said the amount paid into the mitigation fund was not surprising.
Before hiring subcontractors to clear the trees, Johnson said Precise Constructions consulted with outside groups to survey the site's ecological impact, which is an industry standard practice.
“There's a lot of considerations that go into it from a lot of different people,” he said. “It's done carefully.”
A changing landscape
Even before a zero-day arrives, the future — in Broadbent’s eyes — isn’t pretty.
“You want to see Gainesville in 10, 15 years? Go to Ocala,” he said. “You want to see Gainesville in 40 years, head further south, like Apopka.”
Trees cover less than 30% of some parts of Ocala and Apopka, according to American Forests, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit aimed at protecting and expanding forests across the country.
For longtime environmental advocates, forest and canopy loss around the county reflects a broader shift away from Gainesville’s identity as a tree-focused city.
Steve Robitaille, a Gainesville resident and president of Florida Defenders of the Environment, recalls protesting against individual tree removals in the 1960s. Although activism is necessary for change, protesting large developments is difficult, he said.
Robitaille called the city’s mitigation fund a “zero-sum game.” He said the ecological damage done by removing old trees cannot be undone by replacing them with new ones.
“It just seems to fly in the face of these signs — that I think you can still see in town — that say Gainesville is a tree city,” he said. “I don't know how it qualifies for that anymore…It's pretty appalling.”
For more than 40 years, the Arbor Day Foundation named Gainesville a “Tree City USA.”
Trees slow runoff by filtering water and stopping dirt and pollution from flowing into sewers and streams. They absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and release oxygen. They catch small particles that can cause respiratory problems.
Trees also reduce stress, improve mental health and can cool surfaces under their canopies by more than 20 degrees, research shows.
It’s not just major developments such as the one along Southwest Archer Road that are wiping out trees and pushing the area toward a day without non-protected oak forests.
Changes in state tree protection policies have created conflict and made it harder to preserve and manage trees, even on smaller residential lots, said Stephanie Cadaval, the urban forest extension coordinator at the University of Florida.
In 2019, Florida passed a law limiting local oversight of tree removal on private property. Researchers say the law makes it more difficult for local governments to manage and protect urban canopy.
Those broader policy changes often play out at the household level — especially in Gainesville, where a significant portion of its canopy is on private property, she said.
“That just kind of feels, I think for a lot of folks, like a step backwards,” Cadaval said.
City’s conservation efforts
Alachua County’s slogan is “Where Nature and Culture Meet,” but living up to the slogan can be difficult with an increasing population.
“What we're seeing across Florida is more people moving to the community, more developers,” said Gainesville city commissioner Bryan Eastman. “We've certainly seen that and seeing more of a sprawl coming into our community.”
Gainesville’s population has increased more than 17% in the past 10 years. The growth has contributed to the increased development of large apartment complexes across Gainesville, especially luxury apartments targeted toward students.
Despite growing development, Eastman says the city does its best to conserve forests. And it’s trying to do more.
In May of 2025, Gainesville commissioners voted to purchase and conserve a 51-acre parcel bordering the south side of Northeast 39th Avenue. The $1.5 million purchase was paid for through the tree mitigation fund.
Gainesville’s city arborist David Conser said the city is reviewing a suggestion to increase a tree’s appraised mitigation value by 30%, which would help the city to conserve more forested land.
“Trees are great, but people are more important than trees,” he said. “People do need homes to live in, and sometimes you need to remove trees to make a home for someone.”
Zero-Days
To calculate the dates when non-protected oak forests could disappear, Alachua Wild’s algorithm compares old and new satellite images to see where trees are disappearing fastest. Broadbent confirms the results through field visits.
According to Alachua Wild, developers have cleared large tracts all across the county, particularly west and southwest of Gainesville. One of the biggest tracts was just west of Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park and Interstate 75, an area Broadbent calls Kanapaha forest.
Because of its size, location and the quality of the forest, Kanapaha forest remains the county’s highest priority conservation area, Broadbent said.
Alachua County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler said the county should review Broadbent’s zero-day predictions as it considers future tree-saving policies.
”Development is an issue, but I can tell you that the county is watching very closely where it comes to these heritage oak trees, particularly,” she said.
Kristin Fletcher, an 82-year-old Gainesville resident, said she remembers when live southern oaks were so plentiful here that she could smell them in the air.
But she has watched them slowly disappear.
It’s sad, she said.