Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp is now a UNESCO World Heritage site

The Okefenokee was added to the prestigious list Saturday by the World Heritage Committee at its 48th annual session in Busan, South Korea, more than 7,000 miles away from the southeast Georgia wetland.

“The Okefenokee is a place where nature still reigns,” Kim Bednarek, the executive director of Okefenokee Swamp Park & Okefenokee Adventures, told the World Heritage Committee in a speech accepting the inscription.

“Across more than 400,000 acres, water, fire, peat, and time continue to shape an intact wetland, reminding us that conservation is about protecting the natural systems that sustain life itself,” she said.

In joining the list, the Okefenokee gives Georgia its first World Heritage destination and the U.S. its 27th site to make the cut. It’s also the first natural site in the U.S. to be added to the list in more than 30 years.

The Okefenokee’s inscription is the culmination of an effort that began more than four decades ago and was led by a broad coalition including dedicated conservationists, scientists, government officials, nonprofits and many of the swamp’s neighbors.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

What they all shared was the belief that the pristine and wild swamp in their backyard was worthy of the highest global recognition.

As North America’s largest blackwater swamp, the Okefenokee is one of the most intact wetland ecosystems left on the planet. It is home to more than 1,270 species of plants and animals, including threatened or endangered species like the red-cockaded woodpecker and the eastern indigo snake. And it contains huge stores of peat, a type of carbon-rich decaying plant matter that is key to limiting global warming.

The swamp was first earmarked as a potential World Heritage site in 1982 when Ronald Reagan was president but wasn’t officially nominated until 2024 under then-President Joe Biden.

Long before the Okefenokee was considered a possible World Heritage site, it was revered by its first human inhabitants as a place of great spiritual importance.

Starting as early as 2,500 B.C., the ancestors of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and other Native American tribes lived in and around the swamp, building settlements and burial mounds. The name Okefenokee itself comes from a Muscogee (Creek) word meaning “land of trembling earth.”

Tracie Revis, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation who traveled to Busan in support of the Okefenokee’s nomination, told the World Heritage Committee that though her ancestors were forced to leave the land by the U.S. government, their connection to it has “never been broken.”

“The land has not forgotten,” Revis said. “Today, this inscription recognizes an extraordinary landscape and also the enduring presence of its indigenous people.”

‘Outstanding universal value’

World Heritage is a prestigious honor that was modeled in large part after the American National Park system.

The list itself was created by a 1972 treaty that sought to create a framework for protecting “irreplaceable” sites that are “part of the world heritage of mankind as a whole.”

But getting on the list is a competitive and complex process.

Both natural sites, like the Okefenokee, and cultural ones are eligible. But to make the cut, nominating parties must prove to the 21-member World Heritage Committee that a site possesses “outstanding universal value.”

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

The bid’s leaders made their case that the swamp was worthy in a 266-page dossier that detailed the swamp’s natural bounties.

The nomination emphasized the Okefenokee’s biodiversity, especially its role as a habitat for threatened and rare species, and the vast array of landscapes contained in its more than 400,000 acres.

Ahead of the meeting in Busan, the swamp received a key endorsement from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which recommended it for inscription. The IUCN is the official advisory body to the committee on natural sites.

In the end, the World Heritage Committee agreed with the scientists’ assessment.

What’s next?

Now that the Okefenokee is on the list, attention is likely to turn to fulfilling the promise of World Heritage by protecting the swamp and ensuring its heightened profile benefits local communities.

Last year, the nonprofit The Conservation Fund headed off an Alabama company’s attempt to mine next door to the swamp by purchasing all of the company’s land in the area. Many scientists had feared the project would cause irreparable damage to the ecosystem.

But it was not the first attempt to mine on the swamp’s edge — and it may not be the last.

World Heritage does not offer new legal protections for the swamp or restrict what can be done on privately owned lands that surround it. That means new mining proposals are possible, though they would still need approval by state or federal regulators.

In recent years, environmental groups have pressed Georgia lawmakers to restrict mining on the swamp’s eastern flank. With the site now on the World Heritage list, those legislative efforts could be revived.

Proponents of World Heritage have also touted the economic benefits inscription could bring to communities that surround the swamp.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Today, the refuge receives about 800,000 visitors each year who pump an estimated $91.5 million into the local economy. Still, the Okefenokee is regarded as something of a hidden gem, which some believe holds far greater potential as a destination.

With the expected increased visibility of World Heritage status, the Okefenokee could see annual visitors rise to between 1.4 million and 1.6 million by 2035, according to projections produced by The Conservation Fund.

It will take time for the Okefenokee region to realize the promise of World Heritage, but there is optimism about what the future may hold.

Sara Aicher, who worked as the refuge’s wildlife biologist for 31 years and lives in Folkston, the so-called “gateway to the Okefenokee,” said she hopes joining the list will bring new visitors the swamp and ignite in them a desire to protect it.

“It’s been recognized as a national treasure, but now it’s on the world stage so we have a new responsibility to protect it for the planet and for mankind,” Aicher said.

A note of disclosure

The James M. Cox Foundation, the charitable arm of Cox Enterprises, is providing financial and logistical support for the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge’s UNESCO World Heritage bid. The foundation was also part of a group of philanthropic organizations that helped finance the acquisition of property owned by Twin Pines Minerals, which had planned to mine the eastern edge of the swamp. Cox Enterprises owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.