American gambler spent $90 million buying 54,000 acres of logged Florida land

M.C. Davis spent close to 90 million dollars buying up 54,000 acres of heavily logged land in the Florida Panhandle, turning what timber companies had stripped bare into one of the largest private nature preserves in the southeastern United States. Since founding what he called Nokuse Plantation in 2000, Davis and his team have planted more than eight million longleaf pine seedlings across the property, working to bring back a forest ecosystem that once stretched across roughly 90 million acres of the American South before logging reduced it to a tiny fraction of its original size. Davis passed away in 2015, but the restoration project he built continues, guided by a plan he openly admitted would take 300 years to complete.Why M.C. Davis decided to buy up logged Florida landDavis grew up in a modest home in the Florida Panhandle before making a fortune buying and trading land and mineral rights. According to a widely cited account of his story, Davis's shift toward conservation began almost by accident, when he pulled off the road during a traffic jam after spotting a sign advertising a black bear presentation at a local high school. He had not previously known Florida was home to ...