Chelsea: Crossing the Finish Line

Every conservation success has a team behind it

Last year, we shared the story of Chelsea’s second chance at conservation. This year, we’re celebrating its successful conclusion.

What began in 2019 when the 2,700-acre Chelsea property in Jasper County was sold and proposed for large-scale development has come full circle. A determined community refused to give up. Neighbors and local residents rallied through Keep Chelsea Rural, while conservation organizations, military partners, local governments, state agencies, and funders worked together to create a path toward permanent protection.

This summer that path reached its final milestone on August 31, 2026.

The Open Land Trust officially placed a permanent conservation easement on Chelsea, ensuring the land can never be developed. The property has also been transferred from The Nature Conservancy to the South Carolina Forestry Commission, where it will become the region’s newest public state forest. It is now owned and managed by the SC Forestry Commission and protected forever through an easement co-held by the Open Land Trust and the Department of the Navy.

Thank you to Kate Parks Schaefer for continuing to see this project through while balancing a new role at Lowcountry Land Trust.

This outcome didn’t happen overnight. It took years of persistence, partnership, and trust. The Nature Conservancy’s bold purchase of the property in 2025 created the opportunity, but it was only possible because the community had spent years advocating for this landscape and partners at every level stepped up to make permanent protection a reality.

Chelsea is proof that conservation is a team effort. When communities speak up, partners work together, and supporters like you invest in the future, remarkable things happen.

Thanks to that shared commitment, 2,700 acres of forests, marshes, and wildlife habitat are now protected forever and will soon be open for future generations to experience as South Carolina’s newest state forest.