BUSAN, Korea— The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has inscribed the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on the World Heritage List. The listing honors Okefenokee’s natural and cultural significance and solidifies the United States’ commitment to protect it.
“This listing is a powerful testament to the swamp’s rich diversity of life and the critical role the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge plays in the larger ecosystem,” said Jason Totoiu, Florida director of policy at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Okefenokee means so much to so many people around the world, and its World Heritage status underscores the importance of protecting this beautiful place from the ongoing threat of mining. It’s time for state and federal officials to ensure that the swamp and nearby Trail Ridge are conserved forever for future generations. We need an uninterrupted, unspoiled landscape that preserves agriculture and connects wildlife, people and communities.”
The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge spans more than 400,000 acres, encompassing approximately 93% of the mosaic of wetlands that make up the Okefenokee Swamp. Its vast, native ecosystems support hundreds of species of plants and animals, including threatened red-cockaded woodpeckers and eastern indigo snakes.
Okefenokee is the first property managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to earn the World Heritage distinction.
The listing is based on the Okefenokee’s vast biodiversity, rare longleaf pine ecosystems, and unique peat formations that contain information about global conditions over thousands of years. It’s also a unique, rainfall-fed headwaters wetland and the origin of the Suwannee and St. Marys rivers. Unlike other renowned wetlands, it remains largely unharmed by human interference.
Today’s inscription follows decades of work by staff at the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and the support of private partner Okefenokee Swamp Park, Inc., to prepare a detailed nomination dossier highlighting the Okefenokee’s “outstanding universal value,” the international metric used to evaluate potential World Heritage sites. The Center served on the advisory committee for the Okefenokee World Heritage bid.
The bid for World Heritage status has had bipartisan congressional support, and the Park Service received more than 10,300 public comments in support of moving forward with a nomination. The nomination also has the endorsement of more than 30 national, state and local organizations.
In its decision, the World Heritage Committee encouraged the United States to submit a future boundary modification recognizing a formal buffer zone for the property, enhancing protection around the refuge and reflecting the land acquisitions and boundary expansions completed since the nomination was submitted.
The committee also requested that the United States update the refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan, once new U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service guidance is available, to reflect the historical, cultural and spiritual values the site holds for Indigenous Peoples, including those identified by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.
The committee further underscored the importance of maintaining the robust legal and regulatory protections under which the Okefenokee was nominated, so that any future reforms continue to safeguard the qualities that define its outstanding universal value.
Inscription on the World Heritage List is the highest honor in the world for sites of ecological importance like the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.
