The Enchanted Forest Sanctuary: Titusville's piece of Brevard's Environmentally Endangered Lands

The Enchanted Forest Sanctuary is a 481-acre nature preserve in Titusville, owned and managed by Brevard County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands Program, according to the program’s 30-year report. The county calls it a flagship sanctuary: it was the first property the program bought. Its Management and Education Center became, in 2003, the first of the program’s education centers to open to the public. (The county’s sanctuary page gives the acreage as 470.)

The program behind it

The sanctuary exists because of a 1990 vote. The county’s report says Brevard citizens that year approved the Environmentally Endangered Lands Referendum, which called for “acquiring, protecting and maintaining environmentally endangered lands” and improving them for passive recreation and environmental education. Voters approved a second referendum in 2004 to keep buying land.

By the program’s 30th anniversary in 2020, its report lists more than 28,000 acres preserved across the county, more than 37 miles of natural shoreline protected along the Indian River Lagoon and its main tributaries, and 75 miles of multi-use trails.

The education center

The program’s master site plan, completed in the late 1990s, called for four Management and Education Centers. The Enchanted Forest center came first, opening in 2003; the Barrier Island Center followed in 2008 and the Sams House center in 2010, and the fourth, planned for the Malabar Scrub Sanctuary, was put on hold. The county’s report says the three centers together drew nearly 80,000 visitors a year over the five years before 2020. The Enchanted Forest site also has an amphitheater, pictured in the report.

Visiting

The sanctuary sits at the southern edge of Titusville, and its draw is variety in a small space. The county lists five habitat types on the property: oak scrub, mesic hammock, hydric hammock, wet prairie and pine flatwoods. And the county points out that temperate, northern plants and subtropical, southern ones grow here together.

The trail system runs 4.5 miles. Its named loops include the Coquina, Biodiversity, Mesic, Tomoka and Tortoise trails, and the county’s 2025 trail map shows the layout. EEL naturalists lead weekend hikes of about 45 minutes that cover roughly a mile; the county asks hikers to sign up ahead. Wildlife on the county’s list includes the eastern indigo snake, the Florida scrub lizard, gopher tortoises, white-tailed deer and bobcats.

The rules are short. No bikes, pets, smoking, alcohol or motor vehicles, no hunting, no collecting plants or animals, and stay on the trail. Schools can book free study trips, Tuesday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., with programs on scrub ecology, gopher tortoises and prescribed fire.

In the north county network

The Enchanted Forest is one of a dozen protected sites the report maps in north Brevard. The others in Titusville are the Fox Lake Sanctuary (2,568 acres), the South Lake Conservation Area (155 acres) and the Dicerandra Scrub Sanctuary (44 acres); farther north are the Scottsmoor Flatwoods Sanctuary (1,542 acres) and, around Mims, the North Buck Lake and Indian Mound Station sanctuaries.

Further Reading

• Florida’s Fabulous Natural Places by Tim Ohr