Proposed Wilderness Designation Restricts Access to Big Cypress National Preserve

A proposed Wilderness Designation meant to protect Big Cypress National Preserve may overly restrict access. Proponents claim the federal designation is a mechanism to protect the more than 700,000-acre Preserve, and opponents warn it will restrict most access, including public recreation, land managers handling fires and invasive species, area tribes' ceremonial and frequent use, and hunting.  

The federal Wilderness Designation creates the most restrictions on land possible in the U.S. A Wilderness Designation is meant to prevent harm to the land caused by vehicular traffic and machinery. However, due to the size and geography of Big Cypress National Preserve, limiting that traffic has the result of prohibiting access to most of the Preserve. Opponents to the Wilderness Designation include the Miccosukee Tribe of Florida, state agencies including Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, hunters and Gladesmen who are longtime residents of the Everglades, as well as Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. 

“Many of the lands require constant attention to avoid transitions to nonnative habitats and a reduced biodiversity of habitat that makes Florida so special,” wrote DEP secretary Shawn Hamilton in a letter dated March 14 to the U.S. Department of Interior.  

“In addition to the land management challenges, the inability to properly respond to fire suppression needs within the area is of particular concern to the Department. While fire can play an important role in land management and improving the health of habitats, uncontrolled fire can result in severe ecological losses that, once gone, may never return. The Wilderness Designation would create barriers to accessing the lands rapidly during these emergency situations to minimize loss,” Hamilton wrote.  

Furthermore, DEP officials expressed concerns about the Wilderness Designation harming the Western Everglades Restoration Project, which is to improve hydrology to the area that is of particular concern to the wellbeing of the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes. 

“This is very important to us,” said Betty Osceola of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. 

The designation would restrict access to ceremonial grounds and areas where tribes have lived for generations, including to the Loop Road area, where the tribe has a ceremony planned in April.  

Despite a petition garnering at least 25,000 signatures, the National Park Service is moving the Wilderness Designation forward to Congress, she warned.  

Big Cypress is approximately 729,000 acres and is the first national preserve established in October 1974.  

“That's larger than Rhode Island. Approximately one million visitors visit the preserve each year,” according to the National Park Service.  

Senators Rubio and Scott wrote a letter dated March 18 opposing the Designation, addressing U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland: “We respectfully request that you do not move forward with any proposed wilderness designation that will hinder the proper management of public access and natural resources within the Big Cypress National Preserve,” the Senators wrote. 

The management of invasive species has already been a challenge.Restricting vehicular usage to do so within such a large area would allow pythons and invasive plants to take over rapidly, warned Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials.  

The amount of land to be designated wilderness is yet to be decided, with proposals including more than 40 percent of the land.  

Since the Wilderness Act passed in 1964, Congress has designated nearly 112 million acres of federal land as official wilderness, which is approximately five percent of U.S. land.  

Opponents to the Wilderness Designation say preserving the environment does not require prohibiting human access to nature, such as in Big Cypress National Preserve, but rather to improve that relationship between people and the environment for the betterment of both.  

The Wilderness Designation was created at a time when the idea of land unaffected by human activity may have made sense, Osceola said. But at this point, all land is affected, as evidenced by numerous invasive species limiting biodiversity, she said. There are countless other effects that development and civilization have had on land, water and air not just in the Preserve but throughout the world.  

“It doesn’t make sense to have land devoid of humans,” Osceola said.  

Humans are already there, and impacts are made from near and far, opponents to the designation have said.  

People need to access the Preserve to continue to manage those impacts, said Osceola.  

Among the advocates of the Wilderness Designation, the Wilderness Society, a nonprofit supporting Wilderness Designations throughout the U.S., states that the designation continues to allow hiking, camping and photography but limits vehicular activity while still allowing for management of exotic species. 

One of the most environmentally harmful activities within Big Cypress is oil exploration, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonpartisan membership organization founded in 1919 advocating for the National Parks System and most recently for this Wilderness Designation at Big Cypress. The NPCA has publicized that the Wildlife Designation could prevent oil and gas drilling, yet the NPCA has also identified other means by which Big Cypress National Preserve is protected by such exploits. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has the power to prevent oil and gas drilling in Big Cypress through the 404 Clean Water Act, the NPCA has noted and called upon the EPA to do so. 

Citizens can voice their opinions on the matter by addressing their members of Congress.