The U.S. Sends Its Nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage List: Georgia's Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge

In an age where the climate faces numerous perils worldwide, protecting diverse ecosystems must remain a top priority at local, regional, and international levels. International organizations such as UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, work with governments worldwide to ensure the vital continuity of cultural and environmental heritage protection, viewing both as “irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration” that ultimately have a precious and “outstanding value to humanity.” The United States, home to 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites —three of which are in Pennsylvania—, can nominate one site to the UN’s list of culturally and naturally significant sites around the world each year. This year the continent’s largest blackwater swamp, Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, was chosen. If the site is added to the coveted list, it will be the Peach State’s first World Heritage Site.

The swamp is a natural gem that has remained environmentally and hydrologically intact over the centuries, forming undisturbed peat deposits over the course of 5,000 years, and is home to an impressive “diversity of amphibians and reptiles, mammals, birds, fishes, and invertebrates and perhaps as many as 1,000 species of moths.” Other contributions to the site's “outstanding universal value” include the swamp’s positioning as “the source of rivers rather than their recipient, as in a delta, and therefore escapes most disturbances to natural hydrology and water flow.” This makes the site unique among many other significant wetlands such as the Florida Everglades and an ideal option for protection.

As scientists search for information and timelines regarding the history of the Earth’s climate as a tool to fight climate change and find innovative solutions, the undisturbed peat deposits have the potential to unlock many ecological clues that can help humanity navigate these ongoing climate challenges. As more and more land is used for development and mining and CO2 emissions continue to rise, any and all conservation efforts are critical to the health of the planet. Peat deposits effectively capture carbon from the atmosphere and are thus an indispensable tool to fight climate change. Nearly all other wetlands around the globe, whether in the U.S. or abroad, have been severely impacted by human activity. The Dismal Swamp in North Carolina and Virginia is home to a similar habitat but “has been significantly influenced by human activity that changed its waterflows and essentially destroyed half of it.” Flow Country of Scotland, Kapuatai Peat Dome in New Zealand, and Indonesia's Berbak Nature Reserve—all of which are home to significant peat deposits—have differing characteristics than Okefenokee and have also been tainted by human interference that has left a negative impact on the sites’ integrity.

While often presented as a site with significant environmental significance, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is also a site with deep historical and cultural connections that offer a more inclusive and realistic portrait of the nations’ past. Native American tribes, before and after American colonists began their expansive settler project across largely undisturbed ecological environments, have close ties to the numerous national refuges and parks across the country, and Okefenokee is no exception. The Muscogee Nation lived there for centuries before being forced to relocate to neighboring Oklahoma following the coerced signing of the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson. The ancestors of the Seminole Nation also have close ties to the land, and was home to one of the tribe’s camps during the Seminole Wars of the 1830s.

The Muscogee Nation is closely intertwined in the conservation efforts that have been in the works for decades in the midst of an ongoing assault of private companies to reap a profit from the land. Long before the UNESCO designation, the tribal nation has been hard at work to “designate parts of the Okefenokee as traditional cultural property, meaning the swamp has special significance to them, and giving them a seat at the table when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service makes decisions about how to manage it.” The effort to preserve the site is a reflection of a pattern of protection that was once heralded by the nation’s ancestors. As a stark contrast, American companies have continuously tried to exploit the site despite these significant cultural ties. Colonist settlers attempted to drain the swamp and transform it into fertile farmland in the 1800s. A strip mine proposal from a private company was blocked in the 1990s. And most recently, the Twin Pines LLC company has released a proposal to build a titanium mine just outside the borders of the refuge, which has sparked resistance amongst tribal and local communities. Both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Department of the Interior have expressed their disapproval of the mine’s construction, but this stance may not hold for much longer as Trump enters the White House.

The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge draws in an annual 800,000 visitors seeking to admire and explore the site. In doing so, these visitors also support the local economy and businesses, spending an estimated $91.5 million in the surrounding counties. None of this would be possible today without the team of 200 Black workers, known as the Company 1433, who dug 120 miles of water trails as part of the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps program instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 to 1942. State Senator Raphael Warnock recently secured funding for a project committed to the discovery and preservation of this chapter of the swamps history. A group of archivists and conservationists will research the Company 1433 and its descendants, ultimately seeking to honor their work and provide a holistic historical account of the refuge.

If the refuge is added to the World Heritage List, this environmental and cultural heritage of the renowned, 400,000 acre Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge will be protected for generations to come and attain a well-deserved marker of protection that encompasses the environmental and historical integrity of the site. In addition, the state of Georgia estimates that “a World Heritage Site designation coupled with planned infrastructure improvements could double visitorship, add another $60 million in annual economic impact and bring up to 750 jobs to the area.” It will also constitute the first U.S. wildlife refuge to ever be added to the UNESCO list, joining an impressive line up of 1,223 cultural and natural sites. The refuge is a wonderful example of local and indigenous communities’ capacity to rally around a beloved site, as well as a timely reminder of the heightened necessity to protect as much untouched land as possible in an era of growing climate uncertainties and challenges.