Generations of visitors to the Okefenokee Swamp have been enchanted by its rich wildlife, black waters and cypress trees draped in Spanish moss.
But to many lovers of the vast wetland, the Okefenokee has been regarded as something of a hidden gem, boasting pristine wilderness without the international notoriety afforded to similar sites.
That last part could soon change.
More than four decades after it was first tabbed as a potential UNESCO World Heritage nominee, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge could finally be added to the prestigious list this month. It would be a remarkable achievement for North America’s largest blackwater swamp, which has faced years of mining threats along its eastern edge, including a proposal that was alive until last year when philanthropists bought out the minerals company.
Joining the World Heritage List would put the Okefenokee in league with iconic sites like the Great Barrier Reef, Yellowstone National Park and the Acropolis of Athens.
The case for the Okefenokee’s inclusion on the World Heritage List is laid out in an exhaustive, 266-page dossier. But to save you the need to read the entire document, we talked to some of the scientists and others involved in crafting it. Here’s the argument for adding the swamp to the list.
A biodiversity hot spot
If there’s one species the Okefenokee is best known for, it’s the American alligator.
The refuge is home to an estimated 15,000 of the massive reptiles, one of the densest populations of the species on Earth.
But the swamp has more than just alligators to offer.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
It provides habitat 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. That doesn’t include thousands of kinds of insects and other invertebrates known to live in the Okefenokee, plus countless others yet to be documented by humans.
“I would predict that we’re going to make new discoveries in the Okefenokee that are not replicated anywhere else,” said Reed Noss, a University of Florida conservation science coordinator and contributor to the Okefenokee’s World Heritage dossier.
Diverse, pristine and ever-changing
The Okefenokee lies within the North American Coastal Plain, one of the planet’s 36 recognized biodiversity hot spots.
In terms of sheer numbers, scientists say there are parts of this region, which stretches from northern Mexico to southern Maine, that boast more plant and animal species than the Okefenokee. Everglades National Park — the Southeast’s other marquee wetland and itself a World Heritage site — also dwarfs the Okefenokee.
What makes the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge exemplary, researchers say, is the quality and diversity of its landscapes.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The Everglades has been severely altered by urban development, agriculture, invasive species and more. Meanwhile, most of the Okefenokee’s wilderness is the same as it was thousands of years ago, making it one of largest intact wetland complexes left on Earth.
The refuge also stands out for its array of landscapes, said Noss of the University of Florida. Across its roughly 400,000 acres, the Okefenokee contains everything from flooded marshes and threatened longleaf pine forests to mazes of old-growth cypress and sprawling shrublands.
All of it, Noss said, is shaped by the unusual interplay between the swamp’s periodic wildfires — a natural and vital feature of the ecosystem — and its rain-driven hydrology.
“This interaction between fire and water produces this dynamic mosaic of habitats,” he said.
That these landscapes continue to thrive and evolve today is a key reason the Okefenokee’s proponents say it deserves to be on the World Heritage List.
Packed with peat
Decaying plant matter doesn’t sound very exciting. But the material, known as peat, is not only a key to the Okefenokee’s ecosystem — it’s important to the global climate.
And the Okefenokee contains lots of it.
Peat is rich in carbon and in the swamp’s waterlogged environment, its carbon is locked away safely. But when it burns, it releases carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for warming the planet. Research shows that protecting the Okefenokee’s peat and other deposits is key to limiting global warming.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The Okefenokee’s location also makes it globally unique among its peatland peers, said Hans Joosten, a professor at the University of Greifswald in Germany and a world-renowned peat expert.
Most of the world’s peatlands are concentrated at higher latitudes closer to the poles or in the tropics. Georgia’s Okefenokee, meanwhile, sits in the subtropical climate band, where peat deposits are more scarce — and where most that do remain have been altered by humans.
“There is no other peatland of this size and this quality available on Earth in this climate zone,” said Joosten, another contributor to the Okefenokee’s World Heritage dossier.
The headwaters of two rivers
The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge has federally designated boundaries but the tendrils of the swamp extend beyond its official borders.
Its regional influence is perhaps most apparent in the two rivers whose headwaters lie within the refuge: the St. Marys and Suwannee rivers.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The St. Marys zigzags along the Georgia-Florida border before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean, while the Suwannee flows from the swamp’s southwest corner all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Both rivers carry the same black water found in the Okefenokee all the way to the coast, stained the color of sweet tea by the swamp’s rich organic matter
That these rivers themselves are free of dams only adds to the area’s unspoiled ecological richness, Noss said.
An ancient refuge
The Okefenokee has a long, rich human history that predates its designation as a federal wildlife refuge or even its discovery by European settlers.
For thousands of years starting as early as 2,500 B.C., the swamp was occupied by the early ancestors of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and other Native American tribes. The name Okefenokee itself is derived from a Muscogee (Creek) word meaning “land of trembling earth.”
Over the years, mounds, pottery shards and other relics of Native American settlements that once dotted the swamp have been discovered. And while tribes no longer live in the swamp, it remains a place of spiritual and cultural importance, said RaeLynn Butler, the secretary of culture and humanities for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
“We cannot stress enough the importance of the Okefenokee Swamp to our ancestral homelands,” Butler said in a written statement.
A note of disclosure
This coverage is supported by a partnership with Green South Foundation and Journalism Funding Partners. You can learn more and support our climate reporting by donating at AJC.com/donate/climate.
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.
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