AJC Short Film Highlights Sapelo Island’s Climate Crisis and Cultural Resilience 🎥

In this short documentary, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) spotlights Sapelo Island and one of its last remaining Gullah Geechee island communities — Hogg Hummock — along with the environmental and systemic pressures putting their future at risk.

For generations, the Hogg Hummock community has sustained itself through fishing, oystering, farming, and deep-rooted land stewardship. Today, rising sea levels are causing regular flooding and saltwater intrusion, which is threatening the land, culture, and people’s way of life. To make matters worse, many residents are at risk of displacement due to rising property taxes and pressure from real estate developers.

However, a federally-funded partnership brings some hope. Sapelo residents, including Maurice Bailey, are working with University of Georgia researchers to test nature-based solutions. Most notably, this involves restoring the island’s oyster reefs. Using oyster shells as the foundation, new reefs are being created to help buffer the shoreline from storm surge and slow erosion, and to reduce saltwater intrusion into freshwater systems.

What’s happening on Sapelo Island is part of a much larger picture. The same industrial development, climate disruption, and displacement pressures that threaten coastal communities across the country are at play here. Protecting Sapelo’s shoreline also serves to protect the people who call it home, along with preserving their culture and sovereignty.