Conserving the Georgia Coast: A Historical Assessment

This publication provides an overview of the historical evolution that led to an energetic conservation of the Georgia low country starting in the mid twentieth century. Coastal historian Buddy Sullivan argues that the acquisition of many of the sea islands of Georgia by private, largely Northern, interests after the American Civil War laid the foundation for the conservation-preservation several generations later of not only most of the islands themselves but also the fragile marshlands lying between the islands and the mainland. After 1960, most of the islands--including Ossabaw, Wassaw, Sapelo, Jekyll and Cumberland--were gradually sold to federal or state public entities under whose protective aegis they remain to the present day. Others, including St. Catherines, Little St. Simons, and Little Cumberland, were held by private interests and thus also being protected from development. Concomitantly, path-breaking ecological research in the Georgia tidal salt marshes from the 1950s on paved the way toward a scientific understanding of the need to protect these unique ecosystems. Georgia, with only a one-hundred-mile coastline, has more tidal marsh than any other east coast state, a natural system that provides nutrients for a variety of shellfish species. As a result of the science gained, largely by the University of Georgia Marine Institute, state legislation was enacted in 1970 to provide stringent protection and oversight of the marshes, a development that served as the model for similar legislation in other coastal states.