Preservation
In the mid 20th century, conservation groups from all over America began demanding that something be done to preserve what was left of the Great Dismal Swamp. In 1973, the Union Camp Corporation, a paper company based in Franklin, Virginia, which had had large land holdings in the area since the beginning of the 20th century, donated just over 49,000 acres (198 km²) of its land to The Nature Conservancy, which transferred the property the following year to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge was officially established by the U.S. Congress through The Dismal Swamp Act of 1974. The refuge consists of almost 107,000 acres (433 km²) of forested wetlands. Lake Drummond is located in the center of the swamp, and is a 3,100 acre natural lake.
The refuge's resource management programs aim to restore and maintain the natural biological diversity that once existed in the swamp, including its water resources, native vegetation communities, and wildlife species. Water control structures in the ditches help conserve and manage water. Forest management activities which simulate the ecological effects of wildfires are used to restore and maintain plant diversity. Wildlife is managed by insuring the presence of required habitats, with hunting used to balance some wildlife populations with available food supplies.
Read more about this topic: Great Dismal Swamp
Famous quotes containing the word preservation:
“If there is ANY THING which it is the duty of the WHOLE PEOPLE to never entrust to any hands but their own, that thing is the preservation and perpetuity, of their own liberties, and institutions.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“It is my hope to be able to prove that television is the greatest step forward we have yet made in the preservation of humanity. It will make of this Earth the paradise we have all envisioned, but have never seen.”
—Joseph O’Donnell. Clifford Sanforth. Professor James Houghland, Murder by Television, just before he demonstrates his new television device (1935)
“Is not our role to stand for the one thing which means our own salvation here but with which it will also be possible to save the world, and with which Europe will be able to save itself, namely the preservation of the white man and his state?”
—Hendrik Verwoerd (1901–1966)