Water Tupelo in Congaree Swamp Photo courtesy of Friends of Congaree
The United States Congress established Congaree Swamp National Monument in 1976, successfully protecting approximately 15,000 acres of bottomland and old growth forest. In 1983, Congaree Swamp was also designated as the Congaree Biosphere Region (CBR), becoming one of 28 sites in the U.S. Biosphere Network and one of 701 sites in the World Network of Biosphere Regions. In 2003 the monument was designated as Congaree Swamp National Park to protect this valuable land for generations to come.
Biosphere Regions (also known as reserves) offer a local, geographic context for diverse organizations and residents to voluntarily collaborate on sustainable resource use and development. Biosphere Regions/Reserves consist of three geographic zones: a Core Protected Area (CPA), a Managed Use Area, and an Area of Partnership and Cooperation.
The CBR Core Protected Area includes 15,269 acres of federally designated wilderness within Congaree National Park. This area is an important focus for clean air and water, and a sanctuary for diverse plants and animals. It is also a recreational space. Visitors can fish, camp, hike, and paddle. The CPA is also important for scientific research and monitoring as a “barometer,” to gauge the health of the other CBR zones.
The CBR Managed Use Area contains 5,557 acres of wilderness and 5,713 acres of non-wilderness at Congaree National Park. The Managed Use Area is where the park’s trails, roads, visitor center, and facilities are located.
The CBR Area of Partnership and Cooperation encompasses the local watersheds for the Congaree and Wateree rivers. This includes portions of Calhoun, Kershaw, Richland, and Sumter counties. In addition to its rich history and culture, this area provides social economic opportunities including agriculture, forestry, industry, military installations, outdoor recreation, heritage tourism, local business, and private property uses.
“The CBR takes a lot of good, hard work,” says Dr. David Shelley, who worked with environmental education, science, and resource management at Congaree National Park from 2006 to 2023. While he currently works for the United States Forest Service in an unrelated capacity, Shelley was heavily involved with shaping the CBR in recent years.
The CBR remained under-developed and under-utilized for years after the initial designation. Around 2016, a required periodic review process renewed its focus on the CBR and momentum for the partnership framework.
The first periodic review was returned because park staff wasn’t engaging enough with community partners and actively managing the Biosphere agreement. Dr. Shelley then credits Rachel Winters, a seasonal employee, with “chasing down the specifics of the periodic review” by working with other biospheres.
Winters’s second periodic review was approved. Then, after much discussion and several setbacks, including COVID, the Southeast Rural Community Outreach (SERCO), the Central Midlands Council of Governments (CMCOG), and Congaree National Park signed a new agreement and convened the first official CBR Advisory Council in April 2021.
Dr. Shelley defers to SERCO as authentically representing the local community residents, and to the CMCOG as brining the structure and experience to make the Biosphere happen. “The Central Midlands Council of Governments has been fantastic in hosting and coordinating these meetings. They are powerhouses at working behind the scenes to coordinate activities for municipalities at all different levels.”
Gregory Sprouse has been with the CMCOG for 21 years. His organization serves Richland, Lexington, Newberry, and Fairfield Counties. There are nine other councils of government that collectively include every county in South Carolina.
“The work of the Biosphere is consistent with the mission of our agency,” said Sprouse. “We’ve been working for a long time to promote environmental planning best practices and doing work for compatible land use planning in the region, so the Biosphere is a really good fit for us. One of the missions of our agency is to promote regional coordination and collaboration. This type of effort is based on coordinating with governmental, nonprofit, and private stakeholders around the common themes and goals. This is what we do as an organization. This made sense to us.”
Robert Reese graduated from Lower Richland High in 1986 and then went to Atlanta and graduated from Morehouse College with a degree in commercial real estate. He came back to Columbia for his graduate degree at the University of South Carolina, attending Darla Moore School of Business for his MBA.
Reese spent the next several decades working in higher education administration. After several years, Reese found himself, and his family, living in Minnesota and wanting to go back home. The Reese family moved back to Lower Richland County and started an elementary STEM program with Reese’s best friend.
After joining the NAACP and working on local community issues, Reese found an issue that had been looking for him. The local NAACP office was dealing with an upcoming license to renew operations with the Westinghouse plant. They wanted a 40-year license extension. Reese felt that was too long a period.
Since he knew he needed allies more than anything else, he focused on Congaree Swamp. Low and behold, there was something called the Congaree Biosphere Region Advisory Group. The group was looking for members and had a meeting scheduled. Reese has remained very active in his hometown. One of the groups he’s heavily involved with is the Lower Richland Environmental Justice Advisory Group.
Working under the 2021 agreement, the three core Advisory Council partners have expanded to engage other individuals and organizations. One of those new partners is the Friends of Congaree Swamp, an organization dedicated to supporting the Congaree Swamp National Park. The president of this organization is Dr. John Grego, a “retired statistics prof who also serves on the Richland County Conservation Commission.”
Dr. Grego and his wife found employment at USC and moved to Columbia in 1989. One of their first hiking destinations was the Congaree National Monument which unfortunately had been visited by Hurricane Hugo shortly before their initial visit. But they continued going there.
Grego’s dad was a military guy and an avid fisherman who included his son on fishing trips. The family also had a popup camper. Grego began a habit of spending leisure time outdoors while attending graduate school at Penn State. He got into the habit of hiking locations near State College, PA. This peaked an interest in the outdoors as much as fishing. John also became a birder.
Fast forward a bit and Dr. Grego is the current president of the Friends of the Congaree Swamp and also holds down a spot on the Richland County Conservation Commission. “The Congaree Swamp Symposium was designed to add some interest to the Biosphere’s work because there are many different groups involved in the process,” he says.
The 2024 version of the Congaree Swamp Biosphere is much more efficient and working as a group to expand the goals of the Biosphere Philosophy. Those include:
•Conserve CBR natural resources, including environmental (e.g., water, air, and soil) quality, biodiversity, natural forest cover, and ecosystem services.
•Conserve CBR cultural legacies, including community sites, stories, institutions, and traditions while remaining accountable to local voices and stakeholders for guiding CBR initiatives.
•Support sustainable community planning, infrastructure engineering, collaboration, and economic development to simultaneously promote ecotourism, heritage tourism, small business, agriculture, silviculture, local industry, and commerce.
•Promote scientific research, scholarship, monitoring, and education that can inform and inspire decisions regarding conservation and sustainability.
For more information on the Congaree Swamp Biosphere, visit www.nps.gov/cong/index.htm or friendsofcongaree.org.
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