Members of Georgia’s congressional delegation – from both sides of the aisle – are pushing to get the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Senator Jon Ossoff and Congressman Buddy Carter, who represents the coast, are calling on the Interior Department to nominate the Okefenokee for World Heritage Site status. That’s a key step in getting UNESCO to consider it.
In a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz, they called the Okefenokee “a national treasure,” citing the habitat it provides for more than a thousand species, the carbon storage benefits of the swamp’s peatlands and its cultural importance to the Muscogee Creek Nation.
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