Georgia’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, home to the largest intact blackwater swamp in North America and thousands of plant and animal species, will be nominated to join the United Nations’ World Heritage List, the federal government announced Friday.
The move is a significant step to bring global recognition to the swamp, just as a plan for a titanium mine on its doorstep inches closer to becoming reality.
The Okefenokee’s nomination had been expected since 2023, when the U.S. Department of the Interior directed the National Park Service to prepare a case for the refuge’s inclusion on the prestigious list.
To make the list, the World Heritage Committee — which includes representatives from 21 nations — must find that a site possesses natural and cultural assets of global significance. There are currently 1,223 World Heritage sites in 168 countries, including 26 in the U.S. If chosen, the Okefenokee would join globally renowned sites like the Great Barrier Reef, Machu Picchu and Yellowstone National Park.
The Okefenokee’s nomination must first be opened up for public comment, the DOI said. Then, the federal government will submit it to the World Heritage Committee for evaluation. An exact timeline for those steps to be completed was not immediately available, but the committee’s review process typically takes about 18 months. Each country is only allowed to submit one site for consideration each year.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
At 407,000 acres, the Okefenokee is the largest National Wildlife Refuge east of the Mississippi River and provides critical habitat to threatened and endangered species like the red-cockaded woodpecker, indigo snake and wood stork.
It holds vast stores of carbon-rich peat, which keep an estimated 95 million tons of planet-warming gases from escaping into the atmosphere. The swamp is also the headwaters of two rivers: the Suwannee River, which empties into the Gulf of Mexico, and the St. Marys, which drains into the Atlantic Ocean.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland called the nomination an important step for the refuge to join “the ranks of the world’s most cherished treasures.”
“This nomination serves as a recognition of the refuge’s unparalleled natural and cultural significance, and of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees, local communities and Tribes that have stewarded these lands for generations,” Haaland said. The refuge is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
In 2022, Haaland visited the swamp with U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who has pressed the federal government to put forth the Okefenokee as a World Heritage nominee and spoken out against an Alabama company’s plans to mine near the swamp.
For five years, Twin Pines Minerals has been seeking permits to extract titanium from a 584-acre tract of Trail Ridge, a line of ancient sand dunes on the swamp’s eastern edge. The company has insisted the mine will not harm the swamp, but environmental advocates disagree and outside scientists have questioned those claims.
Ossoff, a Democrat, called the Okefenokee’s pending nomination a “huge honor for Georgia” and a “major step forward for the long-term protection of this beloved, beautiful, natural resource.”
Twin Pines is waiting to receive final permits from the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. As he has previously, Ossoff again said state officials should protect the swamp and said allowing the mine to advance would be a “historic error.”
Georgia EPD and representatives for Gov. Brian Kemp — who Ossoff and other opponents of the Twin Pines mine have called on to block the mine — did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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