Off-road vehicle abuse continues in Big Cypress National Preserve

The Miami Herald has a great article about hiking in Big Cypress National Preserve today.  The reporter joined a Sierra Club outing led by activist Matthew Schwartz into a newer section of the Preserve, called the “Addition Lands.”  My husband and I were lucky enough to go for a hike there with Matthew just a few weeks ago while on a visit to FL, in addition to visiting numerous other native FL ecosystems threatened by off-road vehicle and road development.  Wildlands CPR has been working to protect Big Cypress from off-road vehicle abuse for more than a dozen years, and Matthew is one of our key local partners.

Today’s article did a great job pointing out some of the hiking opportunities that abound in the Preserve, and in the Addition Lands in particular, as well as explaining that the Park Service is considering opening these lands to off-road vehicle use in its upcoming planning process.  

The reporter didn’t discuss, however, that off-road vehicles are already using parts of the Addition Lands illegally.  Below are a few pictures of the damage (all photos copyright Marcel Huijser, and my apologies that my computer software significantly reduced the quality of the images) that we encountered during our visit in early March.  The large road in the background of some of the pictures is I-75.

If off-road vehicle users are going to cause this much damage when they’re not legally allowed in this part of the preserve, how much damage will they cause once they are allowed in?  This is not just a rhetorical question.  A few years ago, on another visit to Florida, we went on another hike with Matthew, and several other local conservationists, into the Bear Island Unit of the Preserve.  On that hike, we encountered some astonishing damage from off-road vehicles on a trail that had been opened to them for less than a year.  Wildlands CPR is now part of a lawsuit to protect Bear Island.  See the photos below to get a sense of the damage they caused in just this short period of time.

It turns out that wetlands, cypress domes, marshes, wildlife and habitat in Big Cypress are pretty darn fragile, and off-road vehicle recreation is not particularly compatible with this ecosystem.  Critically endangered Florida panthers depend on many parts of Big Cypress for their habitat.   Though scientists estimate that there are fewer than 100 panthers left, we’ve been lucky enough to see panther tracks on our past two trips to the Preserve.  Unfortunately, the panthers aren’t lucky enough to have any critical habitat designated yet.  Several groups have recently petitioned for the long overdue designation of critical habitat and we hope they are successful.  Places like the Addition Lands are likely to be high on the list for critical habitat, and thus should be designated nonmotorized in order to protect the panther.   But the critical habitat has yet to be designated and probably won’t be before the agency makes it’s determinations for the Addition Lands.  (There’s a counter proposal to make it wilderness, but that doesn’t seem to be how the agency is leaning.)

One of the precursors to these questions about off-road vehicle use in this particular national park is related to the legislation that established the Preserve.  The enabling legislation includes language that some off-road vehicle use is acceptable.  Years ago, the court finalized a legal settlement that Wildlands CPR was a part of, requiring the Park Service to control and limit off-road vehicle damage in the park.  The result was supposed to be a designated system of 400 miles of primary off-road vehicle routes, with some secondary routes also allowed.  While 400 miles may seem like a lot, it’s nothing compared to the 23,000 miles of user-created routes that existed in the Preserve at the time.  

That said, we continue to be involved in numerous challenges regarding off-road vehicle management in Big Cypress, we expect to remain involved there for the foreseeable future.