The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is a 402,000‑acre (1,627 km2) National Wildlife Refuge located in Charlton, Ware, and Clinch Counties of Georgia, and Baker County in Florida, United States. The refuge is administered from offices in Folkston, Georgia. The refuge was established in 1937 to protect a majority of the 438,000 acres (1,770 km2) in the Okefenokee Swamp. The name "Okefenokee", often translated as "land of trembling earth", is likely derived from Hitchiti oki fanôːki ("bubbling water"). Nearly 400,000 people visit the refuge each year, making it the 16th most visited refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System. It is the largest of any that is not located in a western state. In 1999, the economic impact of tourism in Charlton, Ware, and Clinch Counties in Georgia exceeded $67 million. The refuge has a staff of 16 with a fiscal year 2005 budget of $1,451,000. The refuge also administers the Banks Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
History The swamp has a rich human history including Native American settlement, explorations by Europeans, a massive drainage attempt, and intensive timber harvesting. Native Americans inhabited Okefenokee Swamp as early as 2500 BC. Peoples of the Deptford Culture, the Swift Creek Culture and the Weeden Island Culture occupied sites within the Okefenokee. The last tribe to seek sanctuary in the swamp were the Seminoles. Troops led by General Charles Rinaldo Floyd during the Second Seminole War, 1838–1842, ended the age of the Native Americans in the Okefenokee. The Suwannee Canal Company purchased 238,120 acres (963.6 km2) of the Okefenokee Swamp from the State of Georgia in 1891 to drain the swamp for rice, sugar cane, and cotton plantations. When this failed, the company began industrial wetland logging as a source of income. Captain Henry Jackson and his crews spent three years digging the Suwannee Canal 11.5 miles (18.5 km) into the swamp. Economic recessions led to the company's bankruptcy and eventual sale to Charles Hebard in 1901. Logging operations, focusing on the cypress, began in 1909 after a railroad was constructed on the northwest area of the swamp. More than 431 million board feet (1,020,000 m3) of timber were removed from the Okefenokee by 1927, when logging operations ceased. The Okefenokee Preservation Society, formed in 1918, promoted nationwide interest in the swamp. With the support of state and local interests and numerous conservation and scientific organizations, the Federal Government acquired most of the swamp for refuge purposes in 1936. In 1937, with Executive Order 7593 (later amended by Executive Order 7994), President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the refuge, designating it as "a refuge and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife". The establishment of Okefenokee Refuge in 1937 marked the culmination of a movement that had been initiated at least 25 years earlier by a group of scientists from Cornell University who recognized the educational, scientific, and recreational values of this unique area. In 1974, to further ensure the protection of this unique ecosystem, the interior sections of the refuge were designated a Wilderness Area. In 1986, the Okefenokee Refuge was designated by the Wetlands Convention as a Wetland of International Importance. A wildfire which began with a lightning strike near the center of the Refuge on May 5, 2007, merged with another wildfire that had begun near Waycross, Georgia on April 16 due to a tree falling on a power line. The combined wildfires were called the Bugaboo Fire. By May 28, more than 580,000 acres (2,300 km2) had burned in the region, or more than 900 square miles (2,300 km2). In September 2023, the National Park Service announced that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge would be nominated as Georgia's first World Heritage Site. In July 2026, UNESCO designated the refuge as a World Heritage Site.
Geography
Okefenokee NWR has an approved acquisition boundary of 519,480 acres (2,102.3 km2), which is 123,480 acres (499.7 km2) larger than its current area. Approximately 371,000 acres (1,500 km2) of the Okefenokee Swamp wetlands are incorporated into the refuge. 353,981 acres (1,432.51 km2) within the swamp were designated as the Okefenokee Wilderness, a part of the National Wilderness Preservation System when the Okefenokee Wilderness Act was passed in 1974, making it the third largest wilderness east of the Mississippi River. The Okefenokee Swamp is a vast bog inside a huge, saucer-shaped depression that was once part of the ocean floor. The swamp now lies 103 to 128 feet (39 m) above mean sea level. Peat deposits, up to 15 feet (4.6 m) thick, cover much of the swamp floor. These deposits are so unstable in spots that trees and surrounding bushes tremble by stomping the surface. Native Americans named the area "Okefenokee" meaning "Land of the Trembling Earth". Swamp habitats include open wet "prairies", cypress forests, scrub-shrub vegetation, upland islands, and open lakes. The Okefenokee Swamp is one of the world's largest intact freshwater ecosystems. It has been designated a Wetland of International Importance by the United Nations under the Ramsar Convention of 1971. The swamp is compared through research to wetlands worldwide. It is world-renowned for its amphibian populations that are bio-indicators of global health. Water from the Suwannee River Sill area is used as a standard reference by scientists throughout the world. The slow-moving waters of the Okefenokee are tea-colored due to the tannic acid released from decaying vegetation. The principal outlet of the swamp, the Suwannee River, originates in the heart of the Okefenokee and drains southwest into the Gulf of Mexico. The swamp's southeastern drainage to the Atlantic Ocean is the St. Mary's River, which forms the boundary between Georgia and Florida. The swamp contains numerous islands and lakes, along with vast areas of non-forested habitat. Prairies cover about 60,000 acres (240 km2) of the swamp. Once forested, these expanses of marsh were created during periods of severe drought when fires burned out vegetation and the top layers of peat. The prairies harbor a variety of wading birds: herons, egrets, ibises, cranes, and bitterns.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
