A federal judge has ruled the Park Service could place recreation interests above its preservation mandate at Big Cypress National Preserve/South Florida Wildlands Association

Editor's note: This updates with National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis's decision not to comment on the ruling.

A federal court has upheld the National Park Service's decision to place an emphasis on recreation above preservation in nearly 150,000 acres of Big Cypress National Preserve, a ruling seen by some as chipping away at the longstanding mandate that the agency put preservation first.

Whether that ruling (attached below) will be viewed as precedent-setting in other lawsuits seeking more access to national park lands remains to be seen, but onlookers fear it at least reflects a change in management philosophy in the Park Service.

"The bigger concern for the National Park System is that philosophy being embraced by top agency managers," wrote Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, in an email to the Traveler. "The issue before the court was whether that imbalance of recreation over preservation was so egregious as to violate the Organic Act --€“ again, another high legal bar. This particular federal court ruling has no precedental value outside the judicial district. If upheld on appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court, it could give that ruling region-wide status."

No decisions have been made by PEER or the National Parks Conservation Association, another plaintiff, on whether to appeal. 

"Overall, NPCA is disappointed with the judge'€™s ruling. This decision will result in negative impacts to the endangered Florida panther due to excess off-road vehicle use," said John Adornato III, the Sun Coast regional director for the park advocacy organization, in an email. "The Addition Lands are a unique place filled with rare species, including the ghost orchid, and deserve adequate wilderness designation. At this time, though NPCA is evaluating its options and next steps."

Park Service Director Jon Jarvis declined through a spokesman to comment on the ruling and whether he was concerned that it might be used elsewhere in the National Park System to override the agency's preservation mandate as directed in the National Park Service Organic Act.

"Since this matter is the subject of ongoing litigation, we won't have a comment," said Jeffrey Olson, noting that plaintiffs have until Nov. 24 to appeal.

Rick Smith, a member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, found the ruling disconcerting because of its possible outcomes across the park system. While he had not read the entire decision, and so couldn't say it whether it could be applied system-wide, Mr. Smith voiced concern just the same.

"For a long time our policies have said that preservation is the first priority. Now the court seems to be saying that we have to 'strike a balance,' whatever that means. I am sure that recreationists will seize that phrase to try to justify activities that are resource-damaging," he said.

The Big Cypress lawsuit, filed in 2011 by PEER, NPCA, the Sierra Club, the South Florida Wildlands Association and others, claimed that the management plan preserve officials adopted for the Addition Lands allowed for too much ORV use. The filing argued that widespread motorized traffic allowed for under the preserve's management plan would "degrade the unique natural resources" of the Addition Lands, "create conflict with non-motorized users, and fragment one of the last major wilderness areas in the eastern United States."

Species said to be at risk from increased ORV use include many of Florida'€™s most iconic species, such as the critically endangered Florida panther (with an estimated 100-180 adult cats remaining in the wild), Cape Sable seaside sparrow, wood stork, red-cockaded woodpecker, Everglades snail kite, eastern indigo snake and the American crocodile.

"Obviously - with many years of work in this issue - I'm personally very disappointed in the ruling - and disappointed in the preserve administration's insistence in bringing motorized recreation to this very special piece of federal land," said Mathew Schwartz, executive director of South Florida Wildlands. "The NPS literally wrote the book on the negative consequences of ORV use in the preserve - it's called the Off-Road Vehicle Management Plan (2000) for the original preserve.  According to the NPS itself, off-road vehicle use in the Big Cypress leads to destruction and compaction of fragile wetland soils, destruction of plants and roots, helps spread invasive plants such as Brazilian pepper throughout the preserve through soil disturbance and seed dispersal, disturbs native wildlife, fragments habitat, changes the hydrology, and creates user conflict.  

"They easily could have honored their original wilderness eligibility assessment for the Addition Lands and left the vast majority of the area completely off-limits to what NPS itself refers to as a 'high impact recreational activity'," he added. "It would have benefited the vast majority of users - who are non-motorized - but more importantly, kept ecologically intact a vast area of great importance to native plants and animals of the Greater Everglades."

The Addition Lands are a swath of 147,000 acres (112,400 held by the NPS, the rest in private hands) that came to Big Cypress in 1996 as part of a land swap. At the time the Addition was added to the original preserve's northeastern corner, it was placed off-limits to ORV travel and hunting until a management plan could be developed. When Superintendent Pedro Ramos released the final version of that plan in November 2010, it called for up to 130 miles of ORV trails, and as many as 650 ORV permits annually. Along the way to developing that plan, his critics allege that the superintendent and his staff went around Director Jarvis' wishes and denied wilderness eligibility for 40,000 acres in the Addition section.

But in his ruling last month, U.S. District Judge John Steele ruled in part that Big Cypress officials both correctly analyzed the Addition Lands for wilderness eligibility and were within the law and not motivated by politics when they decided to remove 40,000 acres from wilderness consideration. "The Wilderness Eligibility Assessment has been made, and there is no suggestion that anything is in the works to change it," Judge Steele wrote in his 73-page opinion. "Judicial action will not inappropriately interfere with further administrative action regarding the Wilderness Eligibility Assessment, since no additional action is necessary as to that determination."

One aspect of the judge's ruling that particularly drew concern from conservation groups was his finding that, at least in the case of Big Cypress, the Park Service was within its perogative to place recreational use of the Addition Lands above preservation of those lands.

The overarching legal principles Plaintiffs seek to establish are simply not that easy. The conservation mandate of the NPS Establishment Act was tweaked by the subsequent Preserve Act and the Addition Act, both of which required multiple use management, which included the allowance of hunting and at least some recreational ORV use. As was previously stated, multiple use management is a deceptively simple term that describes the enormously complicated task of striking a balance among the many competing uses to which land can be put. The Court rejects Plaintiffs'€™ argument that every NPS decision must favor preservation if there is a conflict with another goal. This would not be 'striking a balance.'€ The Court finds that the substantive decisions by the NPS did not violate the Organic Act or the Establishment Acts.