The Nice Dismal Swamp has lengthy been a topic of native and nationwide fascination. The sprawling ecosystem not solely supplies important wildlife habitat but additionally accommodates 1000’s of years of historical past.
The Nationwide Park Service is now learning how the swamp may doubtlessly function the epicenter for a Nationwide Heritage Space.
These areas “spotlight pure, cultural, historic and scenic assets that, when mixed, inform a cohesive, nationally distinctive story of our nation,” mentioned Julie Bell, cultural useful resource undertaking supervisor for the Park Service primarily based in Denver.
“They’re represented via the bodily options and the traditions that advanced round them.”
The Nice Dismal Swamp’s distinctive story, for instance, contains Indigenous tribes that thrived there for hundreds of years; a profitable logging business jump-started by George Washington; and enslaved folks in search of freedom who created “maroon communities.”
New York Public Library by way of Wikimedia Commons
About 113,000 acres of the Nice Dismal are a part of a Nationwide Wildlife Refuge underneath the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It’s the final vestige of a swamp that when lined greater than 1,000,000 acres, together with virtually all of Hampton Roads and stretching south to North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound.
Bell mentioned whereas the refuge protects the present swampland, a heritage space would have a a lot wider attain, together with cities and websites which might be a part of the swamp’s historical past.
“It’s to incorporate lots of communities that helped make the nationwide refuge space what it’s at present,” she mentioned.
For now, the record of localities contains Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Isle of Wight County in Virginia, in addition to the North Carolina counties of Camden, Currituck, Gates and Pasquotank.
NPS is now within the public engagement stage of the feasibility examine, which Congress accredited in early 2023.
Since then, Bell mentioned the crew has labored to collect details about the area, attain out to stakeholders and search for a company that might function a coordinating entity for the heritage space. (The Park Service technically manages these areas and supplies restricted funding, however doesn’t handle operations on the bottom.)
There are 62 NHAs all through the nation, commemorating issues akin to Civil Warfare landmarks in Tennessee, Spanish Pueblo tradition within the Southwest and the Northern Plains in North Dakota. The Journey By means of Hallowed Floor Nationwide Heritage Space contains Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Charlottesville.
The Nice Dismal could be the primary to focus on a swamp.
Bell mentioned the final purpose is to advertise financial improvement to the realm, spur neighborhood connections and open up alternatives for training and conservation.
“It simply brings a little bit bit extra of a tourism focus to the realm,” she mentioned.
A 2015 evaluation funded by the nonprofit Heritage Improvement Partnership estimated the annual financial good thing about all NHA websites – then numbering 49 — to be about $13 billion, together with boosts to native resorts, transportation and museums.
The Park Service is in search of suggestions to gauge native curiosity and get concepts for who and what needs to be included.
Officers plan to complete the examine subsequent spring. Then, Congress would determine whether or not to proceed with a Nice Dismal Swamp Nationwide Heritage Space.
The Nationwide Park Service is holding three digital public data periods concerning the swamp feasibility examine this week: Tuesday at 4 p.m., Wednesday at midday and Wednesday at 6 p.m. Discover extra particulars and the assembly hyperlinks on the undertaking web site.
Public feedback might be accepted via Could 19 on-line or by way of snail mail to the NPS’ Denver Service Heart. Discover extra particulars on the undertaking web site.
