One of the hottest local public lands debates is happening on a small, virtually uninhabited island off the coast of southern Georgia. The National Park Service (NPS) wants to swap federal land on Cumberland Island National Seashore with private landowners, and it’s sparking debate about transparency and land management.
What Is Cumberland Island National Seashore?
Created in 1972, the 36,000-acre island is close to the border with Florida and located about 2 hours north of Jacksonville. Separated from the coast by inlets, it’s only accessible by boat or ferry, which is a 45-minute ride from St. Marys, Ga. Visitors have the opportunity to enjoy 17 miles of uninterrupted, undeveloped beaches here, and it’s common to see families relaxing, playing, and enjoying a day of fun on the beach.
Around 60,000 people visit annually, according to NPS data. The agency recently announced a plan to expand visitor access by increasing ferry service.
The island and surrounding waters are home to many rare and threatened species, including loggerhead sea turtles, many migratory birds, and Florida manatees.
What Is the Plan?
The NPS wants to acquire parcels of privately owned land because these parcels would “improve manageability of these areas and preserve important resources,” the proposal explained. The land in question intersects with popular visitor access areas and the island’s main road. In order to acquire these parcels, the NPS will offer some of its land in exchange. The two swaps are as follows:
- 20 acres of NPS land for 10 acres of private land.
- 60 acres of NPS land for 119 acres of private land (two non-contiguous parcels).
The private owners of the former NPS land would be required to treat 80% of the land as a conservation area. No ground-disturbing activities or removal/trimming of trees and vegetation would be allowed. On the other 20% of the land, the owners would be allowed to construct a single-family home for residential use, with a maximum size of 15,000 square feet.
The NPS maintained that the plan would benefit visitor access and experience. The exchanges would “result in long-term, beneficial effects on recreation and visitor use. These benefits would stem from maintaining the undeveloped character of the two currently privately owned parcels, preserving the continuity of interior trail networks, preventing the introduction of incompatible land uses along key visitor use areas, and protecting the experiential qualities such as solitude, natural soundscapes, and scenic conditions that visitors seek on Cumberland Island,” it said in the planning document.
It also argued that the swaps would be beneficial for preventing development. If the status quo remains, the private holders could develop their land for commercial and/or residential use. In its environmental analysis, the NPS did admit that if the private landowners choose to build houses on the allowable 20% of their plots, it could lead to “short-term, minor, adverse effects for wildlife and wildlife habitat, including threatened and endangered species.”
The Controversy
Several conservation groups have expressed concern over the plan. In an open letter on Sept. 9, multiple organizations, including Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Environment Georgia, National Parks Conservation Association, Sierra Club, and Wild Cumberland, asked for greater transparency. They want the NPS to hold a public hearing before enacting the plan.
In a prior public letter in June, these same organizations asked Georgia’s congresspeople and senators to urge the “NPS to pause advancement, funding, and implementation of the proposed land exchanges and visitor use proposals pending further public review and congressional oversight.”
In a public comment on the plan, the Southern Environmental Law Center expressed many of the key objections these groups have:
- Whether and how the proposed land exchanges are consistent with Congress’s mandate to “preserve” the Seashore in its “primitive state,” as required by the land’s designation as a national seashore in 1972.
- What are the acreage, value, and cultural and ecological resources of the exchanged properties?
- What, if any, development restrictions will be placed on the newly privatized properties, and what are the precise terms of those restrictions?
“These land exchanges could bring the very type of development to Cumberland Island that Congress wanted to prevent, especially considering its new Visitor Use Management Plan that would more than double the number of daily visitors allowed on the Seashore. More development and more people will mean more habitat disturbance, more human-wildlife interactions and more pressure on sensitive areas. Those changes could fundamentally alter the island and its primitive character,” Kelly Cox, senior policy and planning specialist, national wildlife refuges and parks at Defenders of Wildlife, said in an email to GearJunkie.
Local civic authorities have also shown wariness toward the deal. In March, the Camden County Commission declined to support the plan. Governor Brian Kemp, however, has publicly endorsed the idea.
The NPS has stood by the deal. “Through this proposal process, we have collaborated with landowners to ensure that if the federal government approves the voluntary land exchange, permanent conservation easements would be placed on any land leaving federal ownership. This would safeguard sensitive habitats, preserve the island’s wilderness character and improve long‑term stewardship across the seashore,” Superintendent Melissa Trenchik said in a press release on September 9. The plan is open for public comment until October 16.
