When Rep. Lindsay Cross announced she would not seek reelection to the Florida House, she said she wasn’t leaving public service – just changing how she serves.
The St. Petersburg Democrat has been named Florida state director for the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit that works with communities to protect land, expand parks and trails, and increase public access to nature.
The organization has played a role in some of Pinellas County’s most recognizable conservation projects, from helping bring the Pinellas Trail into downtown St. Petersburg to more recently facilitating the city’s acquisition of the Booker Creek Trail corridor.
The career move continues the work that defined her time in Tallahassee: “The mission of TPL is just so aligned with everything I love and have worked on,” Cross said. “Leading the Florida program is truly a dream job.”
Since taking office in 2022, Cross has championed conservation, resilience and public access through legislation addressing flooding, water quality and land conservation while consistently advocating for projects that connected environmental protection with quality of life. Closer to home, she supported expanding St. Petersburg’s trail network, restoring Booker Creek, improving public access to parks and protecting Florida’s wildlife habitat.
Founded in 1972, TPL works with local governments, landowners and community groups to acquire land for parks, trails and conservation. While many land conservation organizations focus primarily on habitat protection, TPL also emphasizes getting people outdoors through neighborhood parks, greenways and trail systems. In Florida, it has helped conserve thousands of acres while facilitating projects across the state, including the Pinellas Trail and the emerging Florida Gulf Coast Trail.
More recently, TPL partnered with the City of St. Petersburg to acquire the former CSX rail corridor that will become the Booker Creek Trail, connecting the Historic Gas Plant District with the Pinellas Trail. Earlier this month, City Council approved ground lease agreements with Ferg’s Sports Bar that will help finance the city’s $7 million acquisition of the corridor.
Cross said she’s especially excited to continue working on projects like Booker Creek. “I couldn’t be more excited to partner with the local business community to make this a focal area of our city,” she said.
Cross told Poliverse that while she spent years shaping conservation policy, she’s eager to work directly on protecting land and expanding public access.
“Conservation has always been my passion, and while I’ve worked on conservation policy, funding and advocacy, I’ve never been directly involved in protecting land and water.”
She believes Florida’s conservation priorities have shifted too heavily toward protecting land without ensuring residents can enjoy it.
“As we’ve seen a shift from purchasing lands to conservation easements at the state level,” Cross said, “I think it’s critical that we balance the scales a bit and make sure that Floridians are able to enjoy these beautiful places that have been protected with their taxpayer dollars.”
Conservation easements permanently restrict development while allowing private landowners to continue activities such as ranching or agriculture. While widely viewed as an effective conservation tool, they generally do not provide public recreational access.
“As a conservation community, we’ve done a great job of touting the value of conservation easements,” she said. “Unfortunately, those properties usually don’t allow for public access. So while we’ve invested hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in recent years, the ordinary Floridian can’t take their family for a hike on a protected cattle ranch.”
Although she’s leaving Tallahassee, Cross said the relationships she built there will continue to shape her work.
“This position will allow me to take what I’ve learned in Tallahassee but, more importantly, to leverage the relationships I’ve developed in a new way,” she said. “Every community in Florida is different, but Floridians love their public lands.”
She believes Florida’s continued growth makes conservation planning more important than ever. “Natural areas need to be considered as a priority in any new development, not as an afterthought,” Cross noted.
“As a state, we need to do better at planning new developments so that we maintain what is special about Florida,” she said. “Developers and conservation groups need to be part of the discussion early on.”
An avid hiker, backpacker and paddler, she has spent the past six years leading outdoor adventure trips for women across the country and internationally.
Looking ahead, Cross hopes Floridians judge her work by what they can experience: “I want to see more parks, more miles of trails, and more opportunities for Floridians to get outside,” she said. “I want families to be able to walk to a neighborhood park or enjoy a bike ride on a trail that TPL helped to create.”