Protect Cumberland Island Wilderness from Motor Vehicle Abuse
by Wildnerness Watch
Drive-Thru Wilderness? Imagine yourself backpacking deep in the Cumberland Island Wilderness. The island's forests of pine and oak ease seaward into saw palmetto and rolling dunes, creating at the water's edge a beach of white sand stretching the island's 17-mile length. You bask in exquisite solitude, little expecting that your reverie is about to be disrupted by the rumble of jeep engines and the smell of exhaust.
The Cumberland Island Wilderness needs your help!
The National Park Service (NPS) has released an Environmental Assessment (EA) proposing to permit Greyfield Inn, a private corporation, to conduct jeep tours through the Cumberland Island Wilderness in Georgia. The EA also proposes to allow Greyfield to drive on two primitive routes and on the entire length of the Island's sparkling white beach, all within the park's designated potential wilderness, where Congress directed the NPS to prohibit motor vehicle use.
By law, Wilderness is supposed to be free from motor vehicle use, except in the rare circumstance that someone holds a private existing right to drive there. Greyfield claims, based on a nearly 40-year old court decree, that it has a legal right to drive a single route (called "Grand Avenue") through the Wilderness. It is doubtful, however, that the right includes running commercial tours, and it certainly does not include driving in other parts of the Wilderness or potential Wilderness. But the NPS is set to extend driving into these protected areas. Your letters are needed to convince it otherwise!
Amazing in its biotic diversity, Cumberland Island is the largest undeveloped barrier island on the eastern seaboard. It was designated as a national seashore in 1972; in 1982, 20,000 acres were designated as Wilderness and potential Wilderness. Despite these designations, the decision to permit motorized tours in designated and potential Wilderness assures long-term damage to Cumberland's Wilderness qualities and to the experience of all who visit there.
What YOU Can Do!!
Please send a letter, fax or e-mail to the NPS by March 31, 2003. You might want to include the following key points:
- Urge the NPS to NOT issue a permit for commercial vehicle tours anywhere in the Cumberland Island Wilderness or potential Wilderness. To do otherwise sets a terrible example for other Wilderness areas.
- Urge the NPS to NOT issue Greyfield a permit that allows motor vehicle access to the beach, which is designated potential Wilderness.
Send your comments to:
Art Frederick, Superintendent Cumberland
Island National Seashore
P.O. Box 806
St. Marys, GA 31558
Fax:
912-882-5688
Email: superintendent_cuis@nps.gov
You can download the EA at: http://www.nps.gov/cuis/pphtml/facts.html
For more information contact Wilderness Watch, 406-542-2048 or visit the website: http://www.wildernesswatch.org
Last updated: 15 Mar 03