After six years of controversy, the Conservation Fund ensures the Okefenokee Swamp is safe from mining—for now
In a historic move, the nonprofit organization Conservation Fund bought 8,000 acres of land—and the rights to the minerals below it—near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in rural Georgia. They paid the Alabama mining company Twin Pines’ $60 million for the parcel, which included 600 acres of Twin Pines’ proposed titanium dioxide mine, a mineral used in whitening pigments like toothpaste and paint. While proponents for the mine argued it would bring needed jobs to the area, scientists warned that such a project and its groundwater budget would cause irreversible damage to the Okefenokee Swamp, which is North America’s largest blackwater swamp. The Okefenokee is also home to many species of wildlife, including federally threatened and endangered species like the red-cockaded woodpecker (Leuconotopicus borealis), indigo snake (Drymarchon couperi), gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) and wood stork (Mycteria americana). “Twin Pines’ decision to sell their land to a conservation buyer instead of to a mining company is a respectable response to the hundreds of thousands of voices who have spoken out against the mining proposal,” said Megan Desrosiers, president and CEO of the Brunswick-based coastal protection nonprofit One Hundred Miles, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The refuge is currently under consideration to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which would afford the area additional long-term protection.
Read more at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
