January 15, 2005
The New York Times
By FELICITY BARRINGER
CUMBERLAND ISLAND, Ga.- The crooked latticework of live oak limbs,
bent low beneath a coat of Spanish moss, embodies the haunting wildness of
this island. Since the Spanish built missions here off the southern Georgia
coast in the 16th century, men have wanted to possess Cumberland, only to
find that it ends up possessing them.
Now there is a new answer to the recurring question of who possesses
Cumberland, and to what end. Congress stripped federal wilderness protection
late last year from a portion of this almost empty 17-mile spit of land,
siding with islanders, descendants of industrial barons, in a dispute with
wilderness advocates over how to protect the island.
The action could affect the future of parklands far beyond Cumberland
Island, for it is virtually unheard of to take wilderness protections from
parklands, though some Forest Service wilderness land has been trimmed in
the past.
"Public land is put away forever," said Don Barger, director of the
southeast regional office of the National Parks and Conservation
Association. "This bill begins the process of reversing that."
There are parallel battles around the country, where the desire to
preserve pristine landscapes or protect the habitat of endangered animals
conflicts with the desire to preserve the works of man.
On Cumberland Island, which can be reached only by boat - ferries
bring up to 300 people daily - many residents see wilderness advocates as
dictatorial purists who ignore the island's history as timberland,
plantation and playground.
Many of the 100 or so island residents believe that wilderness must
cede ground if its demands conflict with the rights of individual property
owners and the requirements of historic preservation.
In practice, the new law means that motorized tours run by the
island's only inn, Greyfield, and the National Park Service can continue
unchallenged through the wilderness area and along the empty beach. It also
allows for new enterprises, allowing a new inn or an artists' colony to be
installed in an old mansion bordering the wilderness area.
This would bring more cars to a landscape where vehicles were
eventually supposed to disappear in accordance with the Wilderness Act,
which prohibits almost all vehicles on protected lands.
All the more galling to wilderness advocates was the manner in which
the wilderness designation was removed. Legislation to that end had been
introduced by Representative Jack Kingston, a Republican who represents
coastal Georgia, but it languished until he tacked it onto the omnibus
spending bill that was quickly approved in the final hours of the last
Congressional session.
Mr. Kingston said in a recent interview that he was re-establishing a
balance that had been off-kilter.
"To me, a vision of Cumberland Island 75 years from now involves a
combination of a rich history and a great environment, both protected in a
time capsule for the next generation," he said.
The park service, under pressure from wilderness advocates or federal
courts, had been curtailing the residents' rights, he said.
Mr. Barger disagreed.
"The National Park Service cannot curtail valid existing rights," he
responded. "They can curtail perceived rights that aren't legally there. And
that's what was happening."
Within the national park system, Cumberland Island National Seashore
is a relative newcomer. Like many public preserves in the United States, it
consists largely of onetime holdings of families like the Carnegies,
Rockefellers and the Candlers, whose ancestor, Asa Candler, popularized the
formula for Coca-Cola.
Many descendants of these clans preferred to sell to the park service
in the early 70's rather than let a developer build homes. Instead, in 1972,
Cumberland Island, where herds of wild horses wander through the marshes and
across the empty dunes, became a park, with tracts of private property
scattered within. In 1982, facing the prospect of heavy tourism, the
residents supported the creation of 8,800 acres of wilderness.
The Wilderness Act's mandates, however, seemed to clash with those of
the National Historic Preservation Act, which already protects island
artifacts including shell piles left by the Timucua Indians, the chimneys of
slave cabins and an old hotel.
The new law directly affects only a small portion of the island - 200
or so acres on the northern end, plus several miles of primitive one-lane
roads. The land involved was considered "potential wilderness" because the
former owners had rights to live there. The land remains under park service
control.
For the heirs of Thomas Carnegie - brother of Andrew - whose
forebears, seeking coastal playgrounds, bought the plantations that had
crumbled after the Civil War, the bill reflects the reality of the island's
use. The Carnegie descendants who own Greyfield Inn, a private hotel on
private land, take guests on tours in the back of an aging Land Rover.
On the way, they pass wild horses grazing in the marshes, bobcats
slinking under the palmettos and the 70-year-old African-American church
where John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in 1996.
To reduce motorized trips on the road and the beach, wilderness
advocates sought to make the park service cut back or end these tours. But
the heirs say they have a right to continue tours that were conducted before
the wilderness was created.
"The wilderness designation doesn't have anything to do with personal
driving rights," said Jamie Ferguson, who is part of the family that owns
the inn. "Greyfield does a service to the public," he added. "We do give an
overview of the natural history of the island."
Gregory Paxton, the president of the Georgia Trust for Historic
Preservation, also argues that historic buildings have been sacrificed to
wilderness protections. Mr. Paxton said Plum Orchard, a former Carnegie
mansion and historic building that the park service is restoring, needs to
be occupied if it is to be preserved.
A late 1990's proposal for such a colony met with immediate opposition
from some wilderness groups. Then Wilderness Watch, a Montana-based
conservation organization, filed a lawsuit to block the motorized tours to
the island's northern end. Last summer, a federal circuit court panel agreed
with the wilderness advocates, but Mr. Kingston's legislative maneuver
turned the tables.
The National Park Service has played a shifting role in the long
debate. The current superintendent, Jerre Brumbelow, favors the new law,
saying it is "better than trying to force-feed a wilderness on top of so
many long-term, non-conforming uses there." He added that an increasing
number of African-Americans want to find their history in a 19th-century
graveyard near the north end. He said they should not have to walk up to 17
miles to do so.
Mr. Barger said that wilderness designations have been rare on the
East Coast because it was settled early, and the Wilderness Act envisioned
preserving untouched landscapes. Thus, Eastern wildernesses are likely to
involve compromise between the value of the wild and the value of history.
"The task in eastern wilderness is restoration, not preservation," he
said. "The most profound casualty of this entire thing is the opportunity
for wilderness experience in the future."