PROFILE SavannahGreen

Daytrippin: A visit to Cumberland Island + A history lesson on the Georgia Conservancy’s long fight to protect Cumberland

Last weekend I stepped outside of Savannah to experience a different side of the Georgia Coast. Less than two hours down I-95 sits one of America’s great coastal treasures just off the coast of St. Marys. Once home to the world’s wealthiest, Cumberland Island greets visitors with pristine white sand beaches, undisturbed maritime forests, sand dunes dotted with sea oats, and historical ruins as evidence of the island’s legacy from the Golden Era.

I can think of no better way to spend a day than to ride a beat-up rented beach cruiser up and down the expansive packed sand of Cumberland with the Atlantic to my left and the rolling dunes to my right. Aside from an unfortunately sited factory visible from the southend of the island, there is little evidence of human impact as far as the eye can see. On the island’s interior the evidence is slight - a collection of homes and historical relics of once-homes dot the largess of Cumberland, trails meander north from the two docks where visitors off-load from the ferries, and campers pitch their tents in groomed sites run by the National Park Service.

The day was not without its challenges. The heat on the interior was oppressive, the washboarded trails threatened to destabilize my clunker bike, and the sun scorched my back. But there wasn’t a moment - not one single moment - that I wasn’t awestruck by the beauty of this precious place and thankful for its protection. Which brings to mind my day job with the Georgia Conservancy, an organization long dedicated to protecting Cumberland. And that, my friends, brings me to a little history lesson.

In thanks to Cumberland, the gracious hostess that she it, for a Saturday well spent, I’d like to encourage you to learn about her tumultuous history and engage in the ongoing fight to protect the integrity of her wilderness. Of course, you simply must see it for yourself. Until then…

The Worth of Wilderness: Georgia Conservancy’s Fight to Protect Cumberland Island

Wilderness savant Edward Abbey once said, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.” Though Abbey is better known as a controversial environmental author, advocate, and oft-labeled misanthrope, he captures the heart behind the Georgia Conservancy’s watchful eye over Cumberland Island.

In 1972, the Conservancy made history through our role in establishing Cumberland as a national seashore. In fact, the Conservancy’s Coastal Office cut its teeth on the initiative to protect Cumberland Island. That accomplishment was piggybacked a decade later when the Conservancy contributed to the design of the Cumberland wilderness plan, which became law in 1982. While only Mother Nature is worthy of credit for the majestic beauty of Georgia’s southernmost barrier island, the Conservancy can claim a stake in the legacy that remains.

Hans Neuhauser, former Coastal Director of the Georgia Conservancy, played an instrumental role in the ’72 and ’82 Cumberland Island interventions. He captures the essence and spirit of the island in his 2003 testimony before a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

“[Cumberland Island] is a place of great spiritual value, a place for re-creation as well as recreation. It is a magical place, its beauty inspirational. Nowhere else in the world will a person – a citizen without special connections or wealth – be able to have the wilderness experience of the type offered by Cumberland. The wilderness experience is unique.”

Neuhauser’s sentiments reflect a stewardship principle based on the scarcity, and the rarity of wilderness, especially in the eastern United States. In addition to wilderness, Cumberland Island provides an intertwining of cultural, historical, and natural beauty—and a legacy of human habitation. Some see this mix as proof that Cumberland should be more accessible, and plans for motorized trips into the wilderness have been approved by Congress. To do this, Congress delisted
roads as wilderness. Not only an incursion into Cumberland, this sets a terrible precedent nationwide as apparently no federal wilderness is inviolate.

The Georgia Conservancy continues to believe that Cumberland Island’s wilderness, the last coastal maritime wilderness on the eastern seaboard, is literally irreplaceable. Unfortunately, motorized trips through the wilderness are as oxymoronic and as they are bad resource management. While we recognize the argument that publicly-owned areas lose value if the public cannot readily access them, the inconvenient and remote are two intrinsic wilderness values.

Yes, we’re talking about wilderness for the sake of wilderness. Citing Abbey, once more, “The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.”
However defensible, the intrinsic worth of an unspoiled parcel of paradise mocks the question “Why Wilderness?” The answer is larger than we are.

Why Wilderness? Because the world isn’t magnificent simply because we are in it. And the entirety of nature isn’t masterful and orchestrated simply because we witness it. There is a life to wilderness that exists without our feeble contributions: It breathes, beats, shudders, dies, chatters, smiles, and unfurls, oblivious to our presumed subjugation. Cumberland Island is a testament to that reality. Surely, we can save a few precious places such as this intact.

In the words of Will Harlan, ally to Cumberland and to the Georgia Conservancy, “[Cumberland] is an island immemorial, where the story of creation continues in golden stalks of sea oats and centuries-old live oaks.”

Hello, My Name is…

Welcome, glad to have you with us. For those of you who have been following Profile Savannah Green since early Spring, please accept my formal apology for not introducing myself. Where are my manners?

I’m Summer Teal Simpson, coastal programs and outreach coordinator with the Georgia Conservancy. We’re a statewide environmental non-profit that aims to protect Georgia’s natural resources and heritage through education, advocacy and stewardship. Though our office is headquartered in Atlanta, we’ve had a presence on the Georgia coast for nearly 40 years. Throughout that time we’ve been engaged in some of the most pressing fights to preserve these 100 miles of coastline, including work to:

• Designate Cumberland Island as a national seashore and wilderness area
• Defend Little Tybee from phosphate mining
• Create the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve
• Oppose oil and gas leasing off the Georgia coast
• Stop titanium mining near the Okefenokee.
• Designate Cumberland Island as a national seashore and wilderness area
• Defend Little Tybee Island from phosphate mining
• Create the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve
• Oppose oil and gas leasing off the Georgia coast
• Stop titanium mining near the Okefenokee Swamp

Enough about us. Why are you here? Why are we blogging and why should you plug in?? All great questions. To start, we recognize that Savannah - and the greater Georgia coastal region - has alot of eco-news to talk about. But we don’t want to smooth the brain with policy wonk or scientist speak. We want to get folks like yourself jazzed about what’s happening in the enviroworld and connected to the eco-community around you.

But that’s not all. We want to get you engaged in conversation. Tell us your thoughts. Let us know what you want to hear about. I pride myself on being pretty regionally savvy but even my purview is limited. So speak up!

Lastly, I’ll tell you a little bit about myself. The internet and social media can be so impersonal so let me break me down. I’ve worked for five years in the eco-sphere for the Georgia Conservancy and, before that, for the Georgia Conservation Voters. I went to Auburn University for undergrad (War Eagle) and American University for grad school, which legitimized my love for the environment by way of two masters degrees in natural resources and sustainable development. I am a resident of Savannah, a lover of the great outdoors, and a social creature that can’t sit still. Oh, and I’m a writer. My online pursuits include pieces published with the Connect Savannah, TheMusicFile.com and the blog for The Creative Coast Alliance.

Fun stuff. I hope you’ll agree. Thanks again…

GC commentary on Savannah harbor deepening makes the Mother Nature Network

The Big Dig: Plan to deepen Savannah port threatens ecosystem

In a word, the Port of Savannah is huge. The Georgia Ports Authority’s main terminal at the port sprawls over 1,200 acres and is the fourth-busiest container port in the United States. Over the years, the shipping channel has been enlarged from its natural 17-foot depth and is now 42 feet deep at low tide. And it may soon get even deeper. The ports authority wants to deepen the Savannah River channel to 48 feet to make room for the larger ships the industry is adopting. It’s an enormous undertaking that threatens to fundamentally alter the port’s entire ecosystem.

The project, which has been under study for years, is reaching a critical stage. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to issue a draft environmental impact study in August. The Georgia Conservancy’s coastal team has been closely tracking this project for more than a decade in an effort to protect the estuary’s long-term environmental health.

The Conservancy co-sponsored a tour of the port in April to let the public get a close look at what’s at stake. About 30 people hopped aboard a cruise boat to tour the area.   Deepening the port will make it even tougher for oxygen to get to the bottom of the river, increasing the size of the no-oxygen “dead zone.” The project could also send salt water even farther upriver, causing the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge to lose up to 10 percent of its remaining freshwater wetlands. Also of concern: the impact of a deeper harbor on the habitats of the striped bass and the federally endangered shortnose sturgeon. Some steps could help mitigate the project’s impact, though they would be expensive.

Huge “bubblers” similar to those found in household aquariums could be installed to help oxygenate the river. And some cuts could be made in the Savannah River delta to help “replumb” the river, preventing salty water from traveling too far upstream. Even if those steps are taken, issues remain. How long after the project is completed will the Corps of Engineers monitor the potential environmental impacts? How will the Corps react should the mitigation efforts not perform as predicted?  

“We deserve to have a long-term devotion of resources and attention to make sure that once the channel is deepened, we don’t lose the values and functions of the estuary,” said Will Berson, interim director of the Georgia Conservancy’s coastal office.  

This story was written by Paul Donsky of The Georgia Conservancy, an environmental advocacy and conservation organization based in Atlanta that strives to protect Georgia’s natural resources. To learn more, visit www.georgiaconservancy.org.

Horizon Relief provides a creative way to raise money for those in need

I don’t know about you but some days it’s all I can take just to watch what’s happening in the Gulf. It’s made all the more difficult by the fact that our hands are tied when it comes to involvement in the clean up process. That’s not to say there’s nothing we can do to help, though. We just have to get creative. Visit the Georgia Conservancy website for ideas on how you can get more involved.

Speaking of getting creative, I am awestruck by the brilliance of Horizon Relief in marketing an otherwise unmarketable good for the benefit of coastside victims of the oil spill. Of what unmarketable good do I speak? Why, oil-fouled Gulf waters. Yes, Horizon Relief is bottling the oil/water and selling it - a “Vial of Opportunity” for a donation of $25 and a limited number of “Bottles of Hope” for a pledge of $1000. All the proceeds go to help out those who have been most affected by the oil spill: the hundreds of fishermen and commercial fishing industry employees who have seen their livelihoods lain to waste by BP.

While a bottle or vial of water from the Gulf is merely a desktop novelty, it serves as a fantastic way to raise money while simultaneously educating the purchasing public on the seriousness of this issue. Nothing like staring into a bottle of destroyed sea water to communicate the extent of this devastation. Well done, Horizon Relief. 

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georgiaconservancy:

We scouted Sitton’s Cave this weekend to get ready for the June 18 Cloudland Canyon trip. WOW! It was so beautiful! There are still a few spaces open if you are interested in the trip (click here for more information).

scoutatlanta:

Got to hang with Packway Handle Band at AM 1690 today. Pretty awesome alt-bluegrass quintet. If you know me, you know I have a serious thing for men with banjos. It’s true. No seriously.

They’ll be playing with some special guests next Friday at Eddie’s Attic (which I haven’t been to in for.ev.er). Their whole album is solid. Awesome to see another great band coming out of Athens-town.

Timing is everything: Crisis in Gulf offers tragic proof that lifting drilling moratorium off our coast was a mistake

The mantra of the 2008 elections “Drill, Baby, Drill” has sadly turned into words of warning “Spill, Baby, Spill” as more than 200,000 gallons of oil continues to leak daily into the Gulf of Mexico, nearly three weeks after the oil rig exploded off the Louisiana coast. Make no mistake, this spill is THE environmental catastrophe of my lifetime, threatening to destroy the sensitive coastal marine ecosystem of the Gulf and the countless barrier islands along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. In addition, it promises to destroy the $41 billion recreational fishing industry, estimated $900 million commercial fishing industry, and $100 billion tourism industry.

For those of us who live along the Georgia coast, this catastrophe hits close to home. What would our coastline look like were this spill to have taken place off our barrier islands? A representative with Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources paints a grim picture…

Q: Can you provide a list of species that would be impacted in Georgia in the event of a similar spill?

A: That list. if I had one, would include every plant and animal, including invertebrates, from deep coastal water up to and into near-shore coastal uplands. You should be thinking of the total collapse of ecosystems and natural communities rather than from an individual species perspective. The intertidal lands of our coast would be dead with a persistent or repetitive exposure to crude oil.

Visit the Georgia Conservancy’s homepage for more information on the risks of a spill and what you can do to protect Georgia’s coast.

How “green” is your gloss?: Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetic Safety Database

I think this is just the coolest thing ever: the meeting of two of my favorite topics, the environment and looking good. Sadly, the two are often at odds, with cosmetics born of chemicals and degradive processes and resource extraction. But thanks to the Environmental Working Group, we can now asses how bad our make-up, haircare and bath products are for us and for the environment.

See for yourself, ladies…

"Modern technology owes ecology an apology."

— Alan M. Eddison

Greenest Damn Playlist. Period.

In honor of Earth Day, I thought I’d proffer some eco-friendly tunes for your listening pleasure. Go forth and download. Keep the beat alive.

• “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell
• “Don’t Go Near the Water” by Johnny Cash
• “Nothing but Flowers” by Talking Heads
• “Plastic Beach” by Gorillaz
• “Long Line of Cars” by Cake
• “One Sweet World” by Dave Matthews Band
• “After the Gold Rush” by Neil Young
• “Society” by Eddie Vedder
• “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
• “Mercy, Mercy Me” by Marvin Gaye
• “Gone” by Jack Johnson
• “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by The Pixies
• “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson
• “Doctor, My Eyes” by Jackson Browne
• “Idioteque” by Radiohead
• “Fall on Me” by REM
• “Nattura” by Bjork