It was my immense pleasure and honor to prepare the Administrative History of Big Cypress National Preserve. Working with my colleagues at Outside The Box LLC, I conducted the research and wrote this book-length study for this park, one of the first of two units of the National Park System that were designated as National Preserves in 1974.
It was a fascinating project to write, but also the most challenging of the seven administrative histories that I’ve written. Both the complexity of the topic and the quantity of materials were immense. Big Cypress was created amid the tumult of the environmental movement of the late 1960s, and was the “cause célèbre” of the movement in south Florida when the region’s ecosystem was threatened by a proposed massive airport between Miami and Tampa. At the same time, the immense wilderness of the Big Cypress Swamp was treasured by thousands of recreational hunters and fishers, the swamp was an extremely promising source of oil, and Seminole and Miccosukee Indians had been living there for centuries.
In seeking to protect the unique ecosystem of the Big Cypress swamp, which is vital to the health of the adjoining Everglades National Park, advocates for its protection had to seek compromise with those who had been using this region in ways that did not always line up with National Park Service standards of protection. In response, Congress developed a new category for the National Park System: National Preserves. First enacted at Big Cypress in south Florida and Big Thicket in Texas, on the same day in October 1974, National Preserves emphasized the protection of these unique ecosystems while explicitly allowing for the continuation of traditional uses. It was up to the dedicated NPS staff, at Big Cypress and at the Southeast Regional Office, to determine the details of this balance, by developing regulations and finding ways to implement them. This effort to find a balance among often competing interests has continued since the Preserve was created, and has resulted in an enormous wilderness area, more than 750,000 acres, that is remarkable for its beauty and environmental significance.
You can download a PDF of the Big Cypress National Preserve Administrative History here.