Mac Stone's new book is a love letter to ancient swamps in Florida and the Southeast
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
The cover of "Cypress: The Last Old-Growth Swamps" and photographer and author Mac Stone. Photos: Courtesy of Mac Stone
As a child of Gainesville, Mac Stone grew up in The Swamp of all swamps, one could say.
- But the award-winning conservation photographer and National Geographic explorer knows now that the cypress and oak canopies that fascinated him as a child "were as adolescent in their lifespan as I was in mine."
Why it matters: That's according to the preface of Stone's new book, "Cypress: The Last Old-Growth Swamps," a love letter to the ancient forests of the Southeastern U.S. that have been filled and logged almost to extinction.
- Stone is set to speak Wednesday evening at the Tampa Bay History Center. (Tickets are $5 and available here.)
Stunning stat: Of the original 40 million acres of old-growth cypress swamps in the Southeast, less than a 10th of a percent remains.
The big picture: The book features 200 pages of stunning photographs Stone has collected over the last decade of four ancient strands of forest in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.
- It offers "a window into how the Southeast used to look and function before industrial logging, and all the cool little interactions of wildlife and plants and water that play out in these systems," Stone told Axios.
Zoom in: Among them is Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, home to a 700-acre old-growth cypress forest near Naples, about a 2.5-hour drive from Tampa Bay.
- Stone captures in remarkable detail the flora and fauna that keep the forest humming with life: a family of wood storks nesting in the branches, a skulking Florida panther, a giant sphinx moth drinking nectar from a rare blossoming ghost orchid.
- "What makes Corkscrew so unique is that life is riotous there," Stone said.
State of play: Stone lives in Greenville, South Carolina, these days, but I caught up with him last month during the Audubon Florida Assembly in St. Pete Beach.
- We talked about what he loves about Florida ("You find things here that don't exist anywhere else"), his favorite bird (the swallowtail kite) and his recommendation for Tampa Bay nature enthusiasts (Green Swamp).
- He also told me about his other new book on Southeastern swamps, accompanying an IMAX documentary set to debut next month.
The bottom line: What the books "are attempting to do is to grab people and say, 'Look at this! Like, look. Look at this! Look at what exists here, and you won't find it anywhere else.'"