Okefenokee Expansion and Reflection

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Today, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is the largest national wildlife refuge east of the Mississippi River. It contains approximately 407,000 acres and that number is about to increase. ​On Jan. 3​, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced they would expand the refuge's boundary by approximately 22,000 acres.

According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the new acquisition boundary includes lands currently held by a variety of owners within a 1-mile fuel reduction zone adjacent to the refuge. Potential conservation actions on the lands within the boundary expansion could strengthen protection of the hydrologic​al integrity of the swamp, provide habitat for the gopher tortoise, mitigate impacts of wildfires, and provide opportunities for longleaf​ pine restoration to benefit the red-cockaded woodpecker.”

Hunting, fishing, wildlife watching and education have been driving forces behind conservation of the Okefenokee Swamp since the early 1900s​. ​The ‘Okefinokee’Society was formed in 1919 to “give authentic publicity regarding the Okefenokee Swamp, to secure its reservation and preservation for public educational, scientific, and recreational uses.” ​Letters between the founding members of the society are preserved in the Needham Collection at Cornell University and cited by C.T. Trowell​’s “A Chronicle of Efforts to Preserve the Okefenokee,” published in 1998. It is a good read for those of us who appreciate natural and cultural history in our region.

There is a long history of efforts to preserve the Okefenokee Swamp. Talk of swamp preservation began in earnest after the Hebard​ Cypress Company and the Americus​ Manufacturing Company began logging efforts in the early 1900s​. ​In 1912, scientists undertook biological exploration of the swamp, and studies are ongoing​ to this very day.

Efforts initiated by early activists for the preservation of the Okefenokee Swamp gained traction when the Georgia Legislature passed a resolution in 1919 urging Congress​ to preserve the swamp. By 1926, logging companies had depleted the most profitable stands of timber in the swamp.

In 1931, the U.S. Senate committee investigating sites for wildlife refuges visited the Okefenokee Swamp. According to Trowell​, “The committee held a public meeting in Hotel Ware in Waycross​ in the morning and was motored to Hamp Mizell’s fishing camp on the Suwannee Lake in the afternoon.” Members were fed “an old-fashioned Okefenokee dinner” by members of the Waycross​ Women’s Club, including “cornpone and potliker​.”

With funding from J.N. (Ding) Darling and Ira N. Gabrielson​ of the U.S. Biological Survey, Hebard​ Lumber Company was paid $1.50 per acre for its holdings. ​On Feb. 1, 1937, the Biological Survey announced that the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge had been created by executive order.

Over the next several decades, groups to preserve the Okefenokee fought off lumber companies, scenic highways, and barge canals to preserve the swamp. In 1974, the Okefenokee Swamp was designated a National Natural Landmark. ​In 1981, the wilderness canoe trails in the Okefenokee were included in the National Wilderness Trail System.

In 2016, the International Dark Sky Association named Georgia’s Stephen C. Foster State Park in the Okefenokee Swamp one of the best places to star gaze in the world, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The Okefenokee Swamp is one of the Mother Earth’s most diverse places. And, last month the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the refuge would be nominated for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. ​The designation would allow the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge to be recognized alongside​ more than 1,200 cultural and natural sites worldwide​. ​These sites include the Great Wall in China, the Galápagos Islands​, the Taj Mahal in India, the Grand Canyon in Arizona and 25 other sites in the United States of America.

The Federal Interagency Panel for World Heritage nominated Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge to be placed on the UNESCO list. Representatives from 21 nations known as the World Heritage Committee will decide if the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge will be included on list.

Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Shannon Estenoz​ said, ​”Being nominated for the UNESCO World Heritage List is a testament to the refuge’s global value, as a home for wildlife and a vital link to our planet’s environmental past and future.”

Being listed as a site on the World Heritage List does not affect the United States’ sovereignty or management over the sites, which remain subject only to United States law according to the United States Department of the Interior website.

Recently, I reread​ “A Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold. ​This book was first published in 1949. ​In the book, Aldo reflects and celebrates values of a land ethic and the importance of maintaining a global community that cares for people, places, and everything that connects them.

In “A Sand County Almanac,”​ Aldo writes:

“A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken, can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard has only to go back to bed. ​But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black​ night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. ​His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.”

Aldo goes on to say, “It is an irony of history that the great powers should have discovered the unity of nations at Cairo in 1943. ​The geese of the world have had that notion for a longer time, and each March they stake their lives on its essential truth.

“In the beginning there was only the unity of the Ice Sheet. ​Then followed the unity of the March thaw, and the northward hegira of the international geese. ​Every March since the Pleistocene, the geese have honked unity from China Sea to Siberian Steppe, from Euphrates to Volga, from Nile to Murmansk, from Lincolnshire to Spitsbergen. ​Every March since the Pleistocene, the geese have honked unity from Currituck​ to Labrador, Matamuskeet​ to Ungava, Horseshoe Lake to Hudson’s Bay, Avery Island to Baffin Land, Panhandle to Mackenzie, Sacramento to Yukon.

“By this international commerce of geese, the waste corn of Illinois is carried through the clouds to the Arctic tundras, there to combine with the waste sunlight of nightless June to grow goslings for all the lands between. And in this annual barter of food for light, and winter warmth for summer solitude, the whole continent receives as net profit a wild poem dropped from the murky skies upon the muds of March.”

As I look around at all the new development between the Okefenokee and ocean, I find myself sympathizing with the geese in Aldo’s story. ​I am concerned about the dwindling number of wild places to seek refuge along life’s journey for all our relations above and below the waters.

Recent news confirming that U.S. Fish and Wildlife will purchase additional land to expand Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is a New Year’s gift for all.

I am grateful for generation after generation of people who value the Okefenokee Swamp as a cultural and natural wildlife refuge worth preserving because …​

“The fallacy the economic determinists have tied around our collective neck, and which we now need to cast off, is the belief that economics determines all land-use​.” Aldo Leopold, 1949.