Noah is a third-year law student from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from Tulane University with a B.A. in History and Environmental Studies. He is interested in biodiversity, land use, and international environmental law. Outside of school, he enjoys running, yoga, puzzles, and reading.
Situated along the Georgia-Florida border lies 438,000 acres of the largest blackwater swamp in North America and the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the eastern United States. This is the Okefenokee Swamp. This amazing ecosystem is home to a stunning array of biodiversity, including bald eagles, bobcats, black bears, about 13,000 alligators, and endangered species, including wood storks, indigo snakes, gopher tortoises, and red-cockaded woodpeckers. In addition, more than 850 species of plants, including cypress trees, are over 400 years old. Besides supporting a stunning array of wildlife, this ecosystem attracts 725,000 visitors a year, supports 750 jobs, and generates almost $65 million for the four counties surrounding the swamp. However, an Alabama-based mining company, Twin Pines, LLC, is seeking permits to mine 8,000 acres along the swamp's eastern edge.
The usual biodiversity hotspots in the United States are thought to be Hawai’i, the Rocky Mountains, and maybe even Alaska; however, conservation biologists are looking closer at the Southeastern United States, describing it as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. E.O. Wilson reported that the central Gulf Coast states “harbor the most diversity of any part of Eastern North America and probably any part of North America.”
During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, river otters and other Rocky Mountain wildlife faced severe challenges because of the rapid increase in industrialization and development in the region. Mining, agriculture, and ranching significantly polluted and destroyed the clean waterways that otters and their prey, including fish, crustaceans, and amphibians relied on.
When imagining vast, biodiverse, tracts of land in the United States it is easy to imagine the expansive rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, the hard-to-reach peaks of the Rocky Mountains, or maybe even the sprawling deserts in Arizona and New Mexico. However, the southeastern United States from Texas to Georgia and Florida up to Virginia can claim a spot on that list . . . or least they used to.
While plastics have been around for over a century, it was not until 1971 that plastics were discovered in the middle of the ocean. Today, plastic is synonymous with pollution. There is nowhere in the world that plastic has left untouched.
