Bwick News: Cumberland Is mass tourism plan has critics
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Cumberland visitor plan draws criticism
A proposed visitor use management plan for Cumberland Island National Seashore is not generating endorsements from the environmental community.
More than a dozen organizations have raised concerns about the plan by the National Park Service that includes allowing e-bikes, more than doubling the daily visitor capacity, adding commercial facilities, motorized boat tours, kayak rentals and more.
Among the groups signing a letter with their concerns are the National Parks Conservation Association, Wild Cumberland, Center for a Sustainable Coast, Birds Georgia and Center for Biological Diversity.
In the letter, they said the proposed plans put at risk “the qualities that make the seashore worth visiting.”
Cumberland Island is one of the largest undeveloped barrier islands on the East Coast.
The plan also proposes a significant increase in commercial services to be authorized in the park’s wilderness area, despite The Wilderness Act’s restriction of commercial activity.
The letter said the organizations “fully support the Park Service’s goal of providing thoughtful visitor access to the Seashore consistent with its authorizing legislation.”
“To visit the seashore is to love it, and to love it is to protect it,” they wrote. “However, visitor access should not be at the expense of the qualities that make the seashore worth visiting. The letter also asked that the Park Service ensure the visitor use management plan “complies with all relevant laws and regulations, including the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and the Park Service’s own regulations.”
They asked the Park Service to revisit the proposed plan, conduct the additional analysis and evaluation recommended above and “continue to work with the public to develop a plan that appropriately prioritizes the Park Service’s legislative mandate to preserve the Seashore in its undeveloped state.”
David Kyler, executive director for the Center for a Sustainable Coast, said any visitors use management plan should be subordinate to a wilderness management plan for the island, which does not exist. He called the proposal “inherently deficient.”
The Park Service wrote a wilderness management plan for the island in the late 1990s, but it never got approved because of political backlash from island residents. They argued it didn’t make sense to have a plan for a wilderness when people still lived within the boundaries.
“Since nearly 10,000 acres of Cumberland are already designated wilderness and an area described as potential wilderness could double that expanse, it is imperative that the management of wilderness takes priority and must precede adoption of visitation guidelines,” he said.
Without a wilderness plan, Kyler said a visitor use plan “cannot credibly, reliably serve the public interest.”
Steve Weinkle, a former volunteer on Cumberland Island, called the proposal “very troubled.” He said the plan includes “clever wording to disguise” an attempt to raise visitation that conflicts with the original plan made from Congress for Cumberland’s wilderness area to be “permanently preserved in its primitive state.”
Weinkle said e-bike travel in designated and prohibited areas such as private roads. The beach and wilderness areas would be difficult to enforce because of lack of manpower to enforce the rules.
He expressed concerns about a proposal to rent canoes and kayaks, saying it creates risk and requires oversight because paddlers will be exposed to strong currents and extreme tidal changes.
“Paddlers may become stranded or be forced to paddle in unmanageable currents, or be caught in sudden storms, and could abandon their vessel along any shoreline of Cumberland or its nearby islands, requiring both land and river searches,” he said.