Located next to Everglades National Park, and comprising 729,000 acres of the Everglades ecosystem, Big Cypress National Preserve serves as a buffer zone against encroaching development and associated pollution. The Everglades - Big Cypress web comprises the Nation's only significant subtropical marsh community and is one of the most spectacular and biologically important ecosystems on the planet. Big Cypress is an intricate mosaic of wetland and uplands landscapes - a wilderness of cypress forests, prairies, marshes, hammocks, pinelands, and mangroves.

The vast primordial swamps of Big Cypress have an exceptional concentration of endangered and threatened species, including the Florida panther (there only 50 left in the world), West Indian manatee, and Cape Sable seaside sparrow. In addition, it provides a much needed dwelling for the Red-cockaded woodpecker, also endangered. One of the most diverse bird populations in the United States lives amid the orchid-strewn limbs of ancient great bald cypresses and islands of tropical hardwoods.

Protection Status
The Big Cypress National Preserve was set aside in 1974 to ensure the preservation, conservation, and protection of the natural scenic, floral and faunal, and recreational values of the Big Cypress Watershed. The importance of this watershed to the Everglades National Park was a major consideration for its establishment. Unlike a national park, the Preserve allows pre-existing multiple use activities to continue subject to regulation. Under this multiple use management, sensitive natural resources are vulnerable to degradation.

Off-Road Vehicles
In September 2000, the National Park Service issued an Off-Road Vehicle Plan for Big Cypress National Preserve. The crux of the Plan is a reduction in off-road vehicle routes -- i.e., from 23,000 miles of ad-hoc, undesignated routes to 400 miles of designated routes. The Plan is a product of several years of negotiation, litigation, scientific investigation and other efforts to address the devastating resource impacts caused by unregulated use of the Preserve by swamp buggies and other off-road vehicles. To minimize these impacts, the Park Service must implement a designated trail system and access points immediately. In addition, the Plan provides for closure of damaged or sensitive areas, seasonal and nightly closures and a reduction of the total number of annual off-road vehicle permits. Further, the Plan includes research and restoration programs. The Park Service and the public strongly support this Plan.

However, not long after the Park Service issued the Plan, off-road vehicle users opposed to any reasonable limits on their use of the Preserve challenged it in federal district court in Florida. We continue to wait for the Magistrate's decision in the Florida Court.

Oil & Gas Exploration
When the National Park Service (NPS) acquired the Big Cypress lands, they failed to purchase the underlying mineral interests. The Collier Resources Company, the owners of the mineral rights, offered to sell those rights to the Park Service, but the government has not purchased them. In order to ratchet up the pressure on the Park Service and the Administration to cash them out, the Collier Resources Company requested to move forward with a sweeping and devastating plan for oil and gas exploration.

The effort paid off for the company. In May 2002, the Administration agreed in principle to purchase from Collier the mineral rights in Big Cypress National Preserve, Panther National Wildlife Refuge, and Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge for $120 million.

Thuis wasn't the first time Collier and the federal government have arranged a trade: in 1996, the government gave Collier urban development rights in downtown Phoenix in exchange for 108,000 acres to expand Big Cypress preserve.

What Was Averted
Collier's drilling plan would have resulted in the loss of 43.9 acres of wildlife habitat due to seismic exploration and the construction of eight miles of road, running directly through panther habitat and across the National Scenic Florida Trail. Their plans called for using thousands of buried explosives to search for more oil in the preserve, requiring 83 miles of access roads. The delicate ecosystem of the Preserve would have been forever scarred if oil and gas exploration were allowed to expand within its boundaries.

For More Information

• Jonathan Ullman, Sierra Club, 305-860-9888
• Brian Scherf, Broward Sierra, Florida Biodiversity Project, 954-922-5828