In Graham Woods, a 7.5-acre forest located between Tolbert Hall and the Keys Complex, orange means death.
Orange spray paint and orange tape marks hundreds of trees slated to be cut. As soon as this summer, any tree tagged could be removed as part of a push to develop the area.
According to a March 5 meeting of the University of Florida’s Lakes, Vegetation, and Landscaping Committee, the woods will be torn down to make way for ponds and new stormwater drainage infrastructure.
Under the current plan, crews would remove 1,168 trees — including nearly 70 large heritage trees — from Graham Woods and Graham Pond, located southwest of the Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The project would also add walking paths and a cascading retaining pond system, according to site plans.
Plans to regrade all of the slopes surrounding Graham Pond will require the most removals, said project manager Kate Farmer during the March meeting.
Brett Bartek, the project’s ecologist, said the goal of the project was to improve Lake Alice’s ecosystem. Drainage from Graham Woods flows into the man-made Graham Pond and Lake Alice.
“This little bit of woods is much less significant,” he said, referencing Graham Woods during the meeting.
But some have questioned the need to remove the trees and the committee’s lack of proposed alternatives to deal with excess stormwater.
Graham Woods is used by professors and students alike. The forest hosts high plant and bug biodiversity, according to researchers. But it’s also a stomping ground for fraternities, who often forget to take their trash with them, students said.
Farmer redirected a request for comment to UF’s Division of Construction, Facilities and Real Estate. Officials there declined to comment on the development plans or pushback against the project.
Preserving UF’s canopy
The Graham Woods project comes during a period of widespread tree loss in Alachua County.
Since 2016, the county’s tree canopy has shrunk by 7%, according to a WUFT analysis of data from Eben Broadbent, an associate professor of forest ecology and geomatics at UF.
Broadbent created Alachua Wild, a site that monitors deforestation in Alachua County and its towns.
Compared to Alachua County, Gainesville has experienced a greater loss, according to WUFT’s analysis. Since 2016, its tree canopy has shrunk by about 11%, data show.
By comparison, the university has done much better at maintaining its canopy, according to a WUFT analysis. Since 2016, UF’s tree canopy has decreased by 2.6%, WUFT found.
But, after increasing between 2023-24, UF’s canopy dropped 5% last year, its greatest in the years WUFT analyzed.
The loss of Graham Woods would cause an additional decrease in UF’s canopy. But what makes the loss more significant is that Graham Woods is not just canopy coverage. It’s a forest ecosystem. These lands are under threat across the county, Broadbent said.
Forests — not just canopy coverage — have also declined, according to Alachua Wild. Since 2017, Alachua County has lost 5% of its forested land, while Gainesville lost 8%.
Lucas Majure, an assistant curator from the Florida Museum of Natural History, has kept up with the Graham Woods development plans for months. Majure has used the area as an educational tool in the past for his lab, which researches plant evolutionary biology, systemics and biodiversity.
“[Graham Woods] is never going to be what it is now,” said Majure of the proposed project. “We’re going to have something similar to a manicured lawn, rather than an actual wild space.”
Of the trees marked for removal, 221 are invasive species and 67 are heritage trees — trees of considerable age and size that have been on campus for as long as 80 years, Majure said.
The towering magnolia, hickory and sweetgum trees are the pillars of the woods. Some have trunks as wide as three feet and branches as tall as buildings. And on the sunniest days, the canopy provides shade for insects, songbirds and campus cats.
While heritage trees play a key role in dealing with erosion and runoff, they can’t manage the increased stormwater drainage into Graham Woods caused by the construction of the Heavener Football Complex and the Student Health Care Center in 2022 and 2023 respectively, according to the Lake Alice Watershed Management Plan.
The existing drainage pipes are eroded, with several crumbling. The overall system is functioning at 40% of what a high-quality wetland should be, according to site plans.
Development plans would replace the damaged pipes and add manholes. The overall cost of the project, which includes removing and replacing some trees, is between $5.7 million and $9.3 million, according to 2024 estimates by Wetland Solutions Inc., an environmental consultant.
When UF removes healthy, noninvasive trees for construction, it has to plant replacement trees, according to its tree mitigation policy. For each non-heritage tree removed, the policy requires the school to plant two replacements. For heritage trees, the required number of replacements starts at two, but increases based on the size of the tree, according to the policy.
When the university fails to meet these guidelines, the policy requires it to pay into UF’s tree mitigation fund.
The Graham Woods project is expected to replant 447 trees and pay an estimated $455,500 towards the mitigation fund, according to development plans.
But even if the trees are replaced, it will take decades for them to provide as much shade, support as much wildlife and filter as much water as the site’s current trees, Majure said.
Cleaning Graham Woods
Since the Independent Florida Alligator, UF’s student newspaper, broke the news about the development plans in February, a petition to save the Graham Woods has garnered more than 1,300 signatures.
In April, Solidarity, a libertarian socialist student movement at UF, held a clean-up event and bioblitz — a process of documenting organisms that live in an area.
“[The university] has a tendency to disregard student voices … and think that we don’t care about these issues as much as we actually do,” said Jay Kalogiros-Pepper, a Solidarity member.
Cleanup efforts were meant to demonstrate that litter and trash, a major reason for development beyond stormwater concerns, could easily be dealt with, he said.
Volunteers were able to remove a majority of surface-level trash around the entrance to Graham Woods along Stadium Road.
The litter they collected ranged from beer cans, tennis balls and Starbucks cups to tireless bikes and rolled-up carpets. Beside one path was a crumpled orange UF shirt, half buried in dirt and vines; it had been there so long that moss had grown on top of it.
Volunteers also grappled with the invasive plant coral ardisia, or “christmas berries,” known for its bright red fruit. The plant appeared all over Graham Woods, especially near wet areas. Volunteers pulled the plant out by hand or collected the berries, which allow the plant to spread.
They also identified several threatened species under the Florida Endangered and Threatened Species Act, Kalogiros-Pepper said, along with the endangered Florida milkvine.
UF’s Division of Construction, Facilities and Real Estate declined to comment on the development plans or pushback against the project.
Saving McCarty Woods
Less than a mile from Graham Woods, tucked between Museum Road and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Science, is McCarty Woods.
Stepping inside, visitors are greeted by the waving, fan-shaped fronds of palmettos. Blue-bellied lizards scuttle along fallen branches; people picnic at tables on the south side of the woods.
It's a 2.9-acre oasis in the middle of UF’s bustling campus — and a prime example of students and faculty successfully saving a forest marked for development.
In October 2020, UF proposed turning part of McCarty Woods into an “academic/research building site,” according to the 2020-2030 Campus Master Plan Amendment. Plans for the area included new classrooms to teach students about forestry along with the creation of a bicycle-pedestrian zone.
Students and faculty protested the decision with marches and petitions. Their efforts were rewarded in March 2021, when then-university president Kent Fuchs decided not to sign development plans.
McCarty Woods’ story is one that supporters of Graham Woods hope to replicate, they said.
McCarty Woods was originally chosen for development because of previous failed attempts at wrangling its invasive species problem, similar to justifications for the development of Graham Woods, Majure said.
Invasive plants persist at McCarty Woods today, although much less than in the past. At one of the project’s restoration events in March, more than 110 people gathered to water plants, weed out invaders, pick up litter and plant native trees.
“I think that there’s a lot of development at UF,” said Jahzmine Lindo, a freshman public health major at the event. “And the development is good — but I do think it’s important that we also maintain the natural environment that makes campus so beautiful.”
Preserving McCarty Woods is one reason that UF’s canopy loss percentage has been less than the loss in Gainesville and the Alachua County.
Although the cleanups have been a success, the project does have long-term needs to remain sustainable. It needs an official, university-sponsored arborist to supervise McCarty Woods and the 30 other conservation areas on campus, said Pam Soltis, the director of UF’s Biodiversity Institute.
Pam Soltis and her husband, Doug, are leading members of the McCarty Woods restoration committee.
But someday they’d like to pass the reins.
“We’re not going to be around forever,” Pam Soltis said. “At some point we’re going to retire, and then, you know, what’s going to happen?”
