Conservation Fund’s purchase of Georgia/Florida wildlife refuge saves land from mining company

The Conservation Fund has purchased North America‘s largest blackwater swamp which extends from southern Georgia into northern Florida and saved it from a proposed deep earth mine.

The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is no longer available for mining purposes. The Trail Ridge site was owned by Twin Pines Minerals LLC and the subject of a six-year effort by conservation-minded Georgians and folks throughout the South to protect the Okefenokee.

After advocates exhausted every possible avenue to stop the mine, The Conservation Fund stepped in to buy the land and mineral rights, ended the mining threat once and for all and safeguarded the adjacent half-million-acre wildlife refuge.

“Georgia’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is a special place and one of the most important natural treasures in Georgia. It’s the kind of place that sticks with us and sustains us — a destination for nature lovers and home to unique plants and wildlife like alligators, wood storks and bald eagles. By purchasing this land from Twin Pines, The Conservation Fund will ensure that the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge remains wild and unspoiled for all Americans,” The Conservation Fund Central Southeast Region Vice President Stacy Funderburke said.

The Fund has been working in northern Virginia to preserve Historic Oak Hill, the retirement home of the United States‘ fifth president James Monroe and where he wrote the Monroe Doctrine while he served as president. The home sits on 1,200 acres in Loudoun County, which has offered $22 million in support of purchasing and preserving the estate. The Fund requires legislative approval from the Virginia General Assembly, but no funding, to purchase and preserve the estate. The hope had been to open the estate in 2026 as a Virginia State Park.

The Fund’s purchase in Georgia and Florida is critical to protect the entire Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, including more than 350,000 acres of designated wilderness. Trail Ridge marks the eastern edge of the swamp, and a mining accident would have threatened the refuge’s water table and the St. Mary’s River watershed, which drains the eastern side of the refuge.

Thanks to efforts by Okefenokee Swamp Park and local partners, the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge could soon receive UNESCO World Heritage Site status in recognition of its natural significance and biodiversity. More than 800,000 people visit the Okefenokee each year, and spend $91.5 million in Ware, Charlton and Clinch counties.

The purchase was possible thanks to an incredible outpouring of support from the Holdfast Collective, the Cox Foundation and many others. Georgia organization One Hundred Miles has been a key partner in the project, and many groups and individuals, including the Okefenokee Protection Alliance and the Georgia Water Coalition, helped turned out hundreds of thousands of voices in support of protecting the swamp.

Related stories:

Loudoun County: President James Monroe’s Oak Hill home to be preserved as Virginia State Park

Efforts to create Historic Oak Hill State Park ‘delayed, not dead’ by General Assembly