Saving the Pascagoula

Whenever he can, Herman Murrah, 41, a wiry Mississippi conservation officer, climbs into his four-wheel-drive truck and follows the raised sand road that runs westward from the small community of Buzzard's Roost into the Pascagoula Tract, a 32,000-acre expanse of hardwood forest and bottom land straddling a 35-mile stretch of Mississippi's Pascagoula River. There he enjoys basking in the primeval beauty of one of the state's last unspoiled areas. White-tailed deer, black bears and game birds abound in the forested region, fish thrive in its sandy-shored oxbow lakes, and the river runs clean. "I drink from it," claims the balding Murrah. "It'll make your hair fall out, but it won't kill you."

Murrah and the thousands of Mississippians who use the Pascagoula Tract to fish, hunt, camp or just escape with their families for a weekend had been concerned about how much longer the wilderness oasis could survive the state's increasing industrialization. Now they need worry no longer. In a unique effort, Mississippi has not only preserved the Pascagoula, but set an example that other states could follow in safeguarding their own unspoiled areas.

At the urging of environmentalists and the state's newly created Natural Heritage Program, the Mississippi state legislature in 1975 appropriated $15 million to buy the land from its owner, the Pascagoula Hardwood Co. But the company's stockholders were unwilling to sell. Undaunted, the state joined with the Nature Conservancy, a national environmental group, in another approach. The Conservancy made a tender offer for 75% of the company's stock. This time stockholders in the inactive company accepted, selling their shares for some $13 million. The Conservancy, now in control, promptly liquidated the company, took title to its land and then sold it at cost to the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Committee.

The purchase of the tract safeguards a wide variety of exotic flora and fauna. Within its boundaries are cypresses so large that eight men can barely join hands around their trunks, huge stands of water tupelo and witch hazel and thick forests of hickory, iron wood and beech. Fish such as the Atlantic sturgeon and crystal darter thrive in the waters of the new preserve, which also provides one of the only known homes of the yellow-blotched sawback turtle, a rare species that sports two humps on its back like a camel.

Says Governor C. Cliff Finch: "We are embarking on a new era, the husbandry of the Pascagoula swamp forest, for the benefit of the citizens of Mississippi." The state is so pleased with its new policy, in fact, that it is already considering acquiring another 1,200 acres of untouched forest land in the Mississippi Delta.

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