Ways you can engage:

1) Submit a comment. Suggested topics to include:

• Urge the National Park Service to promptly prepare and submit a nomination for Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge inscription on the World Heritage List.
• Highlight Okefenokee’s “outstanding universal value” by describing some of its best attributes, for example:
  • The Okefenokee Swamp is one of the largest hydrologically intact freshwater swamps in the world.
  • Unlike many other significant wetland areas, the Okefenokee Swamp is the source of two rivers (St. Marys and Suwannee Rivers), rather than their recipient therefore the health of the Swamp impacts the health of its downstream river ecosystems
  • The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge has extensive and essentially undisturbed peat deposits, which store valuable information about environmental conditions over the past 5,000 years and also act as a carbon sink.
  • The Refuge is renowned worldwide for its diversity of amphibians and reptiles, mammals, birds, fishes, and invertebrates, as well as an estimated 1,000 species of moths.
  • The Refuge is home to many rare and imperiled species, including the red-cockaded woodpecker, eastern indigo snake, gopher tortoise, Sherman’s fox squirrel, round-tailed muskrat, Bachman’s sparrow, and Florida sandhill crane.
  • The Refuge offers prime, unfragmented habitat for Florida panther reintroduction.
  • The Refuge is protecting and restoring native longleaf pine communities, which were once widespread across the southeastern U.S. but now only remain on 3% of their historical range.
• Briefly explain that Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge meets the integrity and protection standards because it encompasses 92% of the Okefenokee Swamp and enjoys federal legal protections as a National Wildlife Refuge and Congressionally designated Wilderness Area.
• If applicable, express your or your organization’s willingness and ability to support the Refuge through the nomination process (either through resources, good will, etc.).

2) Spread the word. Encourage others to submit comments to show local, national, and global importance and value of the Okefenokee Swamp.