By protecting nearly 150,000 acres in South Carolina the Fund and its partners have safeguarded key wildlife habitat, popular recreation destinations, and helped to strengthen local economies.

Projects

Belfast Wildlife Management Area

After a two-year effort, the Fund completed the final phase in the creation of Belfast Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in 2010.  Conservation of this land not only protects wildlife habitat, but preserves part of South Carolina's history and offers the public access to new outdoor recreational space.

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Congaree Forest

Their mission has always been to protect and defend, but now five military installations are watching over something new: a tranquil and towering forest along South Carolina’s Wateree River. In 2009, we joined Fort Jackson, McCrady National Guard Training Center, McEntire Air National Guard Station, Shaw Air Force Base and Poinsett Bombing Range in preserving 1,900 acres of critical longleaf pine and bottomland hardwood forest. This landscape, now held by the Congaree Land Trust, may soon welcome a new resident: the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

The effort is the nation’s lead conservation project involving multiple military partners along with state and local leaders. The Department of Defense’s National Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative’s Conservation Buffer Program funded the project, as part of its Midlands Area Joint Installation Consortium(MAJIC) effort to establish buffers around the bases. Since 2008, we have helped MAJIC protect over 2,500 acres across South Carolina.

Ashley River Historic District / Middleton Place Woodlands

Located in the fastest growing county in South Carolina, the Ashley River historic district is considered one of the country’s most endangered places. The district’s centuries-old plantations and oaks dressed in Spanish moss represent the unique beauty of the South Carolina Lowcountry. While many visitors to the Lowcountry have taken Ashley River Road from Charleston to the Middleton Place National Historic Landmark, few know of the 5,800 acres across the road known as Middleton Place Woodlands. The woodlands contains wetlands and bottomland hardwoods that harbor wood ducks, little blue herons and endangered wood storks.

Back in 2008, the Fund worked with the Duell Family, owners of the Middleton Place Woodlands, to facilitate the placement of a conservation easement on more than 3,700 acres, protecting the historic beauty of Ashley River Road and the surrounding land. The property is part of the Duell family heritage, having been owned by the family since before the Revolutionary War. The easement was an opportunity for the Duells to preserve the property’s natural state while allowing only limited potential for future development.

Ducks Unlimited will monitor and enforce the easement. Three years ago, Ducks Unlimited began its Ashley River Historic District Project, an effort aimed at protecting critical habitat and undeveloped land between Charleston and Summerville. With the Middleton Place Woodlands easement and another easement recently secured by Ducks Unlimited on 2,441 acres of Millbrook Plantation, more than 12,000 acres have been protected within the historic district. The South Carolina Conservation Bank and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Lowcountry Forest Conservation Project each provided partial funding for the easement.

Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge

In 2006, the Fund helped transfer 850 acres of hardwood forest and wetland habitat to the Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge, just south of Conway. The land not only will enhance recreation opportunities but will also protect important nesting and wintering habitat for wood ducks and migratory waterfowl species.

“The Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most vital, yet vulnerable landscapes in the Southeast,” said Jason Johnson, The Conservation Fund’s South Carolina director. A haven for migratory birds, the 10,590-acre Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge spans portions of the Great Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers, making up a large portion of the Winyah Bay drainage basin. Its diverse habitats include blackwater and alluvial-forested wetlands that host large concentrations of wintering waterfowl, wading birds and neo-tropical migratory songbirds and shelter the northernmost nesting grounds for the sallow-tailed kite.

Read about the following projects in detail: