The natural beauty and wilderness of Cumberland Island National Seashore, from its white sandy beaches and dunes to forests of yellow pine and live oak, attract about 50,000 visitors per year.
That same beauty, however, attracts its share of threats. The latest comes in the form of Senate Bill 1462, legislation to de-designate existing wilderness and form a new wilderness area open to increased vehicle use and commercial tours.
Park advocates say the bill would split the already-small wilderness area into four pieces, removing hundreds of acres at the island's north end from "potential wilderness" designation and thwarting a 30-year process to protect the island and return it to a primitive state. Although the bill adds other acreage on the island to the wilderness area, the result is a patchwork of disconnected parcels divided by permanent vehicular routes. It would be the first time the Park Service has ever de-designated a wilderness area in the lower 48 states-a potentially disastrous precedent.
"While this bill actually increases the total number of acres, it permanently destroys the human experience that is the very reason for wilderness," says Don Barger, NPCA's Southeast regional senior director, whose testimony before Congress in 1999 helped stop a similar bill. "Access to a wilderness experience is one of the rarest commodities in the eastern United States."
In testimony before Congress last year, Park Service Deputy Director A. Durand Jones expressed support for the bill, which would remove three roads, Main Road, Plum Orchard Spur, and North Cut Road, from wilderness designation, increasing access to the north end of the island for vehicles and tours. Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Zell Miller (D-Ga.) introduced the legislation, which had yet to be voted on at press time.
Ironically, the legislation arrives during the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, a landmark, bipartisan law designed by Congress to protect "enduring resources of wilderness for the permanent good of the people." In 1982, Congress and then-President Ronald Reagan designated more than 8,000 acres of Cumberland Island as wilderness and set aside another 11,700 as "potential wilderness." Their goal was to gradually phase out any access harmful to wilderness.
"This bill completely undermines the determination made by President Reagan and Congress: that the highest and best use of this portion of the island was to provide an eastern wilderness experience," says Barger. "Increasing harmful access to a few of the island's visitors would trump the experiences of the majority of visitors who enjoy the island's natural wilderness and will for future generations."
