Margaret Carr, M.L.A.

Professor of Landscape Architecture

College of Design, Construction and Planning

2006 Awardee

A growing state like Florida produces rapid changes in land use. In 1994, Margaret “Peggy” Carr secured $1 million in research funding from the State of Florida to design a statewide system of greenways. In 1999, the legislature adopted the Florida Statewide Greenways System Plan.

Carr, a professor of landscape architecture, focuses on land-use change and how that relates to conservation strategies. As a result of her efforts and that of the UF design teams, the state’s land acquisition policies have changed, focusing more on larger blocks.

“A specific Florida Forever project example that meets this objective is the 140,000-acre Camp Blanding to Osceola National Forest Connector, important for Black Bear habitat, water resource protection, timber production and hunting,” says Carr.

Carr’s influence in environmental planning extends both nationally and internationally, from the Yellowstone to Yukon corridor through the Rocky Mountain chain in the United States and Canada to the Pan-European Ecological Network.

As rapid growth in the southeastern United States increasingly restricts the possibilities of land conservation, Carr’s research focus has grown to include different ways of understanding changes in land use.

Carr says “it no longer seams feasible to simply focus on conservation planning, but instead it is also necessary to find ways to help the public visualize what our communities will look like in the future, if current land-use trends continue.”