THE SAPELO ISLAND NATIONAL ESTUARINE SANCTUARY (SINERR):

After two federal studies in the 1960’s showed that nearly all of the U.S. estuaries were being destroyed, damaged, or reduced in size through development and pollution, the National Estuarine Sanctuary Program was established through the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1971. The Program, administered through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), would provide up to 50 percent matching grants to coastal states for acquiring estuarine areas. The purpose was to identify relatively undisturbed examples of different types of estuaries and protect them so they could be used as standards to measure the effects of human activities on similar coastal wetlands. The first sanctuary was established in September 1976 in Coos Bay, Oregon.

Sapelo Island was chosen as an example of southeastern marshes representative of the Carolinian Biogeographic Province (the area between Cape Hatteras and Cape Canaveral). Also, a long succession of Marine Institute scientists already had assembled a considerable body of work describing the saltmarsh ecosystem, and a resident staff continued to add to it. Largely because of the latter factor, on December 22, 1976, Sapelo Island’s wetlands became the second estuarine sanctuary to be designated by NOAA. The Sapelo Island Research Foundation agreed to sell the south end of the island to the State of Georgia for a nominal fee to accomplish this. The State of Georgia (Heritage Trust) contributed $2 million, the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service contributed $500,000 and NOAA provided a matching grant of $1,500,000.

Announced as a “Christmas present to the people of the Nation,” the 7400-acre sanctuary designated for protection the southern portion of Sapelo Island, the entire Duplin River, adjacent wetlands, and surrounding areas. With watershed areas protected as well as the estuarine ecosystem, the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Sanctuary was declared “a natural laboratory for scientific research and education.”

Stewardship of the Sapelo Island Estuarine Research Reserve is the responsibility of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which leased 1575 acres to the University System Board of Regents to continue the activities of The University of Georgia’s Marine Institute.

In accepting sanctuary designation, certain obligations regarding research and education were incurred by the State. The DNR has responsibility for monitoring the environment to establish baseline conditions in an undisturbed area and providing interpretive programs to help the general public gain an understanding of estuarine ecology.

In 1986, the name of the National Estuarine Sanctuary Program was changed by NOAA to reflect more adequately the role intended for it. The change to the “National Estuarine Research Reserve System” also precipitated change in nomenclature at the local level to the “Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve.” Seventeen areas in the Nation now carry the designation of National Estuarine Research Reserves.